Marketing Your Karate School Isn’t Easy
March 13, 2008
The honest truth is marketing your karate school isn’t easy and can be, at times, downright challenging.However, it can be easier if you educate yourself on the principles of marketing.
Marketing your karate school, to me, is a lot like earning your black belt. It takes a ton of time, sacrifice, desire, dedication, preparation, reading, experimentation, and more.
Anyone who promises or claims otherwise probably isn’t on the up and up. Sure there are templates they might provide but what happens when three other studios in town are using the same templates?
You have to understand marketing in order to be able to adapt and counter effectively.
Why can it be difficult? Because marketing is an ongoing and all encompassing activity, not just a one time event. Your marketing should be a true reflection of who you are and the service you provide. Authentic marketing works from the inside out, not the other way around.
It takes a lot of time, thought, and preparation to come up with a solid marketing strategy for your karate school.
Marketing is More than Yellow Pages
Keep in mind everything about your karate school is marketing and everything you say in your marketing has to match the reality of your business. It’s all got to align in order to be the most effective.
You and I both know your potential students will see through it the second they walk into your karate school if what you claim doesn’t match what they see in your studio. If it doesn’t mesh, you’ve lost a prospect.
Some marketing experts tell you to use a template ads, websites, fliers and so forth in order to get a quick start on your marketing. They almost always make it sound too good to be true. That’s because it almost always is. The fact is that template just isn’t going to 100% match your karate school and could position you very differently than the reality of your business. Proceed using those with caution.
Learn Marketing from the Best
Just as you can’t get a black belt without an instructor, you can’t learn marketing in a vacuum.
It’s good to have someone or a group of people help mentor and point you in the right direction so you can learn from their experiences – good and bad. That’s a main reason I started Marketing Martial Arts. I wanted to provide a home for martial arts school owners and operators to share and receive solid marketing advice.
In short, take the time to really learn and understand marketing. It’s worth every minute you put into it. Remember, marketing karate school is not going to be easy. But then again, is anything of value ever easy?
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