Posts Tagged ‘Vip’

“Are You Nuts? You Want Me To Give Away Free Classes?”

It's easy to get focused on your current students and forget you need to attract new ones. Using guest referral passes is the second most effective marketing method among martial art school owners.

In the recent survey I posted on my blog and in the member forums, guest passes (sometimes called VIP passes) came in at number two as the most effective form of advertisement and marketing for martial art school owners. This doesn’t surprise me a bit, as I’ve been using guest passes as an effective form of marketing since I was first introduced to them in the late 90′s.

Of course, my first reaction to using them was probably similar to that of most instructors. “What? You want me to give away free classes? Are you nuts?” The thing is, I was networking with some very successful instructors at the time, and I was able to verify the effectiveness of guest pass programs firsthand by observing their results. And, soon after I learned how to effectively implement them in my own school, we found they were in fact a great way to get new students.

Basic Concepts For Using Guest Passes Effectively

A few key points about using guest passes that will greatly enhance their effectiveness as a marketing method for your school… Read the rest of this entry »

Last month I wrote to you about planning your classes out for the new year ahead of time. This will ensure your classes are exciting, that you have less work and stress next year, and that you have more time to focus on enjoying teaching. In short, planning out your entire year’s worth of lesson plans ahead of time will make you more effective as a teacher. Planning for your marketing in the new year is no different, and in fact I’d say it takes an even higher priority than planning your classes. Why? It’s putting the horse before the cart… no students – no classes! So, let’s look at how you can plan your marketing cycle out for the year, based around the marketing approach that I teach all my coaching clients to use to build their enrollments rapidly.

Planning The Cycle…

Remember last month when I explained how to break your curriculum up by year, quarter, and month? We’re going to do roughly the same thing with our marketing plan, but we need to take other factors into consideration – namely:

• Seasonal swings in inquiries and enrollments -
• Seasonal “windows of opportunity” for certain markets and age groups -
• Seasonal and holiday promotions -

Now, let’s just take the first quarter of the year… we obviously have the New Year holiday to kick things off… the opportunity here is to attract adults who are looking to lose weight and get in Read the rest of this entry »