Top Posts for April 2009

Here are the top 5 posts for Marketing Martial Arts in April 2009; according to how many times they were viewed by our visitors:

1. A Practical Guide to Building a Better Martial Arts School Website
2. The #1 Mixed Martial Arts Marketing Mistake and How to Correct It
3. Top 8 Pages Every Martial Arts School’s Website Should Have
4. 3 Factors of Successful Martial Arts Marketing
5. Make Your Martial Arts School More Successful in 2009

The online poll with the most activity this month was “Which Martial Arts Billing Company Do You Use?“.

Which was your favorite? Did it make the top 5 for the month?

Popularity: 6%

4 Books Every Martial Arts School Owner Should Read

As a martial arts school owner, it’s always important to always be studying, learning, and growing.

And, I’m not just talking about the martial arts style or system you study, I’m talking about what you fill your noggin with as it relates to marketing and business!

You can’t build your business unless you are learning and implementing new ideas, systems, and strategies.

I don’t know about you but I read a ton about marketing and business. And, I must confess I’m obsessed! It’s about all I read anymore. I just ordered 5 new books yesterday from Amazon and just got 3 in the mail.

If you’re not a marketing and business book fanatic like I am, this post will help you find some good reading!

There are some great books specific to marketing martial arts that I will write about later. However, I thought I would first recommend a few books that aren’t about the martial arts business that can really help your martial arts school or mixed martial arts gym grow.

Here we go, in no particular order…

1. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
Michael Gerber

This book hit me right in the face and woke me up to the fact that I was thinking more like a technician and not an entrepreneur. It’s a real eye opener!  The book is a little longer than the others listed below but worth the read.  Mr. Gerber tends to go on and on with his stories, but they do help illustrate his points.

According to Gerber, every business owner needs to simultaneously be 1) an entrepreneur and 2) a manager as well as 3) a technician.

1) The technician is the one in the trenches producing the product or offering the service.

2) The manager ensures that the operations and finances run smoothly.

3) The entrepreneur drives the company in the right direction and leads with vision.

Of the three, it is the entrepreneur role that is the key to long term business success. However, most small businesses fail because the technician is usually the one in charge and doesn’t know how to run a company or lead with vision. They’re only good at the job, not running or leading the business!

2. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
Seth Godin

Cows, after you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. However, imagine driving down the highway and seeing a purple cow.

A purple cow is the idea of something out of the ordinary… something that gets noticed and gets people talking.

Every day, we are bombarded with boring, average products and services. They all start looking and sounding the same.

For example, open up any yellow page and flip to the martial arts section and this will stare you right back in the face… you’ll see a ton of ads that all look the same and sound the same.

What a waste of money! No one is trying to look, sound, or act any different. There are no purple cows!

The author reveals that a Purple Cow must be inherent. In short, it’s not something that can be added on later it must be at the core and work from the inside out.

Godin has an incredible gift of being succinct yet still getting his point across. This is an easy read and finished it in two days. I didn’t want to put it down!

3. All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
Seth Godin

Yes, I’m a Seth Godin fan…. I saw him speak in Salt Lake City on his “The Dip” book tour (also a great book!) a couple of years ago and found him very insightful and entertaining.

He is a great marketer and definitely gets it.

The title of this book alone is brilliant.

However, it isn’t exactly true. It’s not the marketers who are the liars. It’s the customers who lie to themselves.

According to Godin, successful marketers don’t talk about features or benefits. Instead, they tell a story. A story customers want to believe.

There are some great examples to learn from that can help inspire you to tell your story in a new way.

4. Creating Customer Evangelists
Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

If you’re looking for ways to get people talking about your business, READ THIS BOOK!

Creating Customer Evangelists describes the 6 step process of creating customer evangelists:

1. Customer Plus-Delta (Continuously gather and use customer feedback)
2. Napsterize Your Knowledge (Share freely what you know)
3. Build the Buzz (Find the right word of mouth networks and tap into them)
4. Create Community (Encourage your customers to come together)
5. Make Bite-Size Chunks (Make it easy to try, like a free trial)
6. Create a Cause (Focus on making the world, or even just your community, a better place)

While these all might sound rather intuitive, not every business implements them. There is also a workbook you can get to accompany your reading that I also recommend.

I have used the principles in this book since 2002 and believe me they work!

Well there you have it, Four solid books you should buy and read as soon as possible. I have a ton of other books I will recommend in other posts but this will at least get you started.

Be sure to leave your comment about the books you would recommend!

(I really do read them ALL!)

Popularity: 8%

Create a Fan Page on Facebook and Get Social!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about Facebook.

According to Wikipedia, “Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.”

Did you know you can create a “fan page” on Facebook for your martial arts school for free?

Creating a fan page for your martial arts school is something you can do to further help attract and drive additional traffic to your martial arts school.  It’s another great social media way to connect with your students, suspects, and prospects.

Facebook is a great way to not only connect with your past and present friends, it’s also a great way to connect with future students and parents of future students.

If you haven’t created a fan page yet, check out the Marketing Martial Arts fan page to see the nuts and bolts of how it works.

Here are some interesting facts and statistics on Facebook:

General Growth:

Popularity: 7%

Are You Building A List?

Building an email list for your martial arts school is one of the smartest things you could be doing for your business.

When you own a list of qualified prospects and students, you can weather any recession. In fact, having a list is the single biggest asset you can have in business.

On average, it takes 7 times before someone buys from you. You can either wait for them to come to your website 7 times, or you can reach out to them proactively 7 times.

Which method do you think will bring you more students?

People are easily distracted. However if you capture their name and email, you get to reach out to them instead of hoping they come back to you.

How many prospects have you lost because you didn’t offer them a way to keep in touch with your martial arts school?

AUTORESPONDER RECOMMENDATION

I have used AWeber’s email autoresponder service since 2005. They are my top pick and I HIGHLY recommend that you use them.

AWeber provides you the freedom and flexibility to create a series of emails or newsletters in advance and set their delivery frequency.

You can also send out on demand broadcast emails anytime you have something urgent and important to say.

AWeber makes building, managing, and growing your list a snap. They give you the HTML or a javascript to add an email capture form to your website. It’s literally point and click!

In fact, you can try AWeber risk-free for a month to get more email subscribers, enhance your subscriber relationships, and increase your sales. Try it out today!

Frankly, I’m surprised at how many martial arts school websites I visit don’t have a basic online form where they make an offer and trade free information for a name and email address.

Are you guilty of this?

Building a list helps you build long term relationships with prospects and also helps people to know, like, and trust you.

I have a list with hundreds of people. It helps me connect with past students, existing students, and future students. I am building trust and have had people on my list for over four years. Not everyone has become paying students on my list, but they haven’t opted out, either.

When they are ready to take lessons, who do you think they are going to call?

I send out a monthly email newsletter as well as instant updates whenever I add a post to my blog and it helps me retain students, get new students, and keep my martial arts school on the top of their minds.

Now, before you go off and start building a list and start pounding them with offers, you might want to reconsider.

People are trusting that you won’t abuse the privilege of having their email. It’s funny, most people hate spam but don’t think twice before sending it.

You have to give people useful, relevant information. You shouldn’t build a list solely to push your latest discount, newest class or Tshirt.

You have to build value and provide great information they can’t get anywhere else and then you supplement the valuable information with your offer, not the other way around.

Like your website, don’t make your email communications about you. Make them about the person who subscribed and it will come back to you ten fold.

Don’t forget to check out Aweber email Communications and start building your list today!

Agree or disagree? Leave your opinion in the form of a comment below!

Popularity: 5%

Poll: What martial arts billing company do you use?

Recently I was emailing a fellow martial arts school owner and they mentioned they use electronic funds transfer (EFT) in place of contracts.

And, it got me thinking…

Which one do you use and why? Vote then share your reasons in the form of a comment below!

Popularity: 8%

3 Factors of Successful Martial Arts Marketing

Do you ever wonder why some martial arts school owners just seem to attract students like a magnet? Students seem to find them, line up, then sign up.

It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?

However, the reason for this is likely because they understand the three factors of successful martial arts marketing. And, it’s not too late for you to start building these into your own marketing efforts so you can start having more students find you, line up, then sign up! Read more

Popularity: 8%

How You Can Improve Your Martial Arts Schools Website

I’m often asked by visitors on Marketing Martial Arts how they can improve their website. So, I created a quick reference guide to help martial arts school owners get an easier start on building a better website. I also wanted to make it easy to share with your web designer so you can quickly and efficiently add these ideas to your website. Read more

Popularity: 5%

The #1 Mixed Martial Arts Marketing Mistake and How to Correct It

I’ll make this quick: 95% of the mixed martial arts gym websites I’ve seen are nothing more than shrines to the instructor, their fighting record, and how to fight. In short, they are all about the ego of the instructor.

Using ego as the central messaging of your marketing efforts is a mistake. In fact, it can limit your growth severely to the point it can cripple your MMA gym. Read more

Popularity: 7%