Posts Tagged ‘Small Businesses’

Three Trends School Owners Need to Be Aware of When Marketing Online in 2010-2011

Google is changing the face of search... again. Are you prepared for what's coming?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should be aware that online marketing is of the utmost importance to your business in the coming decade.

As I’ve mentioned and discussed many times in recent years, the landscape of marketing small businesses locally has changed drastically since 2005.

Print is dead. Yellow pages are useless. Newspapers are the dinosaurs of our media. Better than 90% of the population turns to online media to research buying decisions. We’ve been through all this before on this site and my martial arts business blog.

But the marketing landscape changes at a breakneck pace in the new information age, and it seems to change ever faster as technology progresses. I spend a considerable amount of my time studying these trends and analyzing what they mean to small business owners, so I can advise my clients on how to best leverage new marketing technologies and opportunities.

If you follow the trends and know how to take advantage, there has never been a better time to market your business. But, you have to know the trends to take advantage of them. Here are three trends that you need to know about for marketing your business online in 2010 and 2011.

Read the rest of this entry »

Martial Arts Business Success Step #1 – Get Your Marketing And Lead Generation Down Pat

Follow my steps to martial arts business success and you'll soon become a martial arts business "master".

Until a student walks in the door and you collect a check, you aren’t in business.

You can get business cards printed up, tell everyone you’re starting a martial art school, and even sign a lease on a building, but not one of those things really mark the transition from “wannabe” to bona fide school owner.

The only thing that does is getting paid – that’s it. And, you cannot and will not get paid without marketing your school and services effectively. Period.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve counseled struggling school owners who gave little if any consideration to marketing when launching their school. And by the same token, I’ve also counseled school owners who wasted considerable time, effort, and resources on highly ineffective and grossly inefficient marketing methods.

If you want to launch and run a successful school, start with becoming an expert marketer. This article will teach you the fundamentals of marketing and lead generation, which marketing and advertising methods are best suited to small businesses, and how to best implement those methods for the greatest effect. Read the rest of this entry »