What is Your Prospects First Experience Like at your Martial Arts School?

I have been looking to get some mats at my martial arts school and a friend of mine invited me go to his MMA gym the other night to check out what they use.

As I walked in, my friend introduced me to one of the owners/instructors. We shook hands, said hi, and then he handed me a full color glossy postcard sized handout with the schedule, basic description of classes taught, and the rates on it. Then he immediately took off to teach a kickboxing class. My friend took me back to his Jiu Jitsu class and after about 10 minutes the other instructor came over and introduced himself then went back to teaching his class.

I enjoyed watching their classes. It was a good time and gave me great insight. It also helped me to determine what I should do with my mats at my martial arts school. Overall, I had a great experience.

However, I left that place without anyone asking me for my phone number, email, or if I wanted to sign up for the free trial (which they offer).

If it were your school, how would you have interacted with me? I’d really like to hear your thoughts and reactions to this and promise to read every response. Please do me the favor of sharing your ideas below and thanks in advance.

Popularity: 6%

Martial Arts Marketing Forum is Live!

I am excited to announce the new martial arts marketing forum

The martial arts marketing forum is a place to discuss marketing and business related ideas and is unaffiliated with any martial arts marketing association or billing company. So, you can ask about anything and everything related to running a martial arts school without worrying about the sales pitch.

Why launch this forum? Basically, I launched this martial arts marketing forum to help everyone in our community grow and prosper.

Whether you are a traditional martial arts school or a mixed martial arts gym, this forum can help you get new and innovative ideas to help attract more students to your business.

I have created several categories to kick things off but will be adding more shortly. If there is a category you want added, please just send me a note and I’ll get it live as soon as I can.

Otherwise, jump in and start asking questions!

Please note that in order to post, you have to register first. Sign up now to participate in our martial arts marketing forum!

Popularity: 6%

3 Referral Marketing Systems that Can Help Make it Rain New Students

In my last post, Add an additional $21,456 of pure profit to your martial arts school, I talked about how important having a referral system in place. This post gives you referral marketing ideas to test at your martial arts school.

Notice the word “system.” Many martial arts school owners are making a living off of their referrals because they have a “referral system” in place and do not sit around waiting for them to happen.

So, to help you kick things off, here are three straight forward referral marketing strategies that can help get you more students and on your way to making $21,456 more for your school!

Referral Strategy #1

Within five days of sign up, ask for referrals. This is a great system to put in place for all new students.

Timing can be everything with referrals. As soon as you have a student sign up for regular lessons, that is the perfect time to ask for referrals because they are incredibly excited about starting your lessons.

Send them a letter congratulating them to your martial arts school, give them basic reminders to help ease their transition into your classes (in essence provide value in the letter),  and then ask them for five referrals.

Don’t be a block head and say thanks for signing up, now turn in your friends!

Be sure to tell them what kind of person makes for a good student at your school, so they can have a better frame of reference and can easily picture the right people who match your description. Sometimes just telling them “more like you” isn’t enough information.

Then include five lines to collect the names, emails, and phone numbers of their five friends. To help lift response, tell them when they fill this out and bring it in, you’ll give them a $25 gift certificate to XYZ restaurant or a coffee shop or what have you.

Referral Strategy #2

Implement a win/win/win referral program.

Let’s face it, referrals ultimately benefit you the most and are usually a win/lose/lose proposition. You get more students and make more money, but the student who refers a new student gets jack.

Marketing is based around “what’s in it for me,” even in referral marketing and applies to everyone. Even you.

Sure, your student can feel warm and fuzzy for referring another student and one would hope that is enough. But, the reality is waiting for referrals usually won’t motivate the masses to refer new students, no matter how good of an instructor you are.

Simply put, you should reward referrals.

Not only that, but also give a reward to the person who is referred. In this way, you create a win/win/win proposition.

For example, give a discount on lessons, say a free month, to the person who refers a new student to your martial arts school. Then, give a $50 sign up discount to the person they refer. In this way, you all three win, and the person who refers the new student feels like they get a better deal than the person they are referring.

This is the one I use the most and works incredibly well for my martial arts school.

Referral Strategy #3

Would you spend $25 to make $100? How about $1,200 to make $4,800?

This referral strategy is something that Duct Tape Marketing founder John Jantsch talks about in his Referral Flood book and that is to offer a full refund referral system.

Here’s how the full refund referral system works:

For every new student someone refers, they get a 25% discount on lessons. When that person brings in the fourth student, they train for free for the rest of the year. Talk about incentive to refer people!

This referral program can be adjusted to make sense for your business but is one that can get people talking and can seriously help you make it rain referrals.

Think about it, you’re not out anything until someone signs up. Not only that, but you’re making even more money as a result. Plus, it motivates the person to refer more students. It can be very motivating!

Referral Marketing Works

Referral marketing systems require consistency if they are going to work. You can’t start it and go on auto pilot. To keep it top of mind, put up a flyer. Include it in your newsletter. Send a letter announcing your new referral program. As more new people start, start building it into your sales presentation so that from day one they know you expect referrals.

On last tip, be sure to recognize people in class whenever a student refers someone else. That alone will help remind your students of your referral program and that other students are referring students; which can motivate them to jump on the bandwagon as well.

Do you use any of these referral marketing systems? What do you use and how effective is it for you?

Popularity: 7%

Poll: Do you blog on your martial arts school website?

I run several blogs on many websites. I do this for many reasons including its great for search engine optimization, it’s easy to update my site on any computer with internet access, I love writing and  sharing information, and more.  And, it got me wondering…

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What are your reasons for blogging?  If you don’t, why not?

Popularity: 5%

Add an additional $21,456 of pure profit to your martial arts school

How would you like to add an additional $21,456 of bottom line profit to your martial arts school?

What if I told you you could actually do this if you implemented just one idea from this site?

Well, it’s simple really.

Just work to get one referral a month every month for an entire year.

Getting one referral a month isn’t too hard, especially if you put a system in place to help make it happen.

Referrals Are The Best Source of New Students

As we all know, referrals are usually the cheapest marketing vehicle there is. It can cost you little to nothing and can help fill up your martial arts classes, fast.

It is also the most persuasive marketing there is because people listen to their friends and family members and value what they say.  It comes down to trust and people trust their friends and family (well, in most cases!).

How many things have you purchased just because a friend told you they loved it?

I have TiVo because a friend of mine wouldn’t shut up about it. He got me excited enough to pay $150 for the box and $15 a month for the service. I’ve had it for 5 years now and can’t live without it.

In fact, I know of many martial arts schools that almost exclusively market their martial arts school through referrals.

How cool would that be for your business? Not only that, how much more profitable would your martial arts school be?

If you got one referral a month every month for a year, that can add up fast.

Here’s the quick math if you are charging $149 a month for lessons:

• $149/month x 12 months = $1,788
• $1,788/yr x 12 referrals/yr = $21,456

Remember, that doesn’t include down payments, belt tests, proshop sales or anything else. That’s $21,456 just off of lessons (assuming they each stayed on for a full year). Then when you factor in the lifetime value of each student, this number really starts to skyrocket!

Simply substitute your monthly number to see how much you could add from this idea. Hopefully this little exercise motivates you to create a referral system for your martial arts school.

I know when I ran the numbers, it put a BIG fire under my butt to get moving!

Don’t Wait For Referrals

Most people think referrals just happen and that you don’t have to work for them.

If you’re doing this, slap yourself in the face. Hard.

You can’t rely on referrals just happening on their own to grow your business. Sure, they can happen on their own. But, probably not enough to sustain your business.

You have to make them happen.

If you don’t have a referral system in place, its time to create one.

Even if you are already getting a lot of referrals each month, imagine how many more you could be getting if you had a referral system in place that did all the work for you!

In my next post,  I will share three referral marketing systems that can help you get more students from referrals.

So, how many referrals a month do you get?

Popularity: 8%