What is the best method for attracting and keeping new potential Martial Arts students? Especially when advertising a new Martial Art system?
Being consistently awesome. Or at least noticeably better than everyone you're competing with for students. Class will out.
What sort of students are you looking to attract, children, people looking to defend themselves or the athletically minded?
Well for starters I'm trying to promote a new system aimed at Self-Defense only. We have ads in the paper, using social media, by mouth, and notices up all over the city. We're trying to get mainly adults, but have it advertised for both kid's and adult's.
Well, i honestly don't see anything wrong with a few demo's, as i feel the practicality of the martial art should probably sell itself, however i know some people feel them to be a little tacky, granted, one thing that seemed to really work well for my old boxing gym was the head guy used to make the really powerful, fast guys work the bag right near the front desk, so you'd see someone throwing heavy leather at a bag, sort of hinting to people how devastating you could potentially be with a little training.
Yeah, I've thought about demos. This is new to me (advertising for a new art). I spent over 25 years in Tae Kwon Do and didn't have this kind of issue. Of course I was also apart of an organization so that help.
A quick google search shows lots of different orgs using the name ''S-DTac'' why not use a simpler name which is unique to your new art. if this is your group - http://www.sdtacwsd.com/ ?? If so what does ''streetling'' refer too? Noun (plural streetlings) A small, inferior, or minor street. One who frequents or lives on the streets. Origin From street + -ling. Read more at http://www.yourdictionary.com/streetling#VQCV1BS6JjiLtfPf.99
I wouldn't be interested in a kids and adults SD class, so I'd give consideration to removing that from your advertising. Kids defending against adults is fine, but that's a separate class and you should make that clear. SD requires equipment specifically designed for the task, so what do yo have? If for example you have Spartan equipment you should be including that in your posters. The same for Bulletman or any other gear. How do you use social media? It's hard to tell how many views MAP gets via it's other social media outlets, but they are adding value. People like JWT and Eddie Quinn (both UK based) constantly drip feed videos via You Tube into other social media outlets. Both are also on LinkedIn because both lecture and have a professional consultancy outlet. I have a new student coming to class on Tuesday because of something I posted on Twitter a week ago. I post as MAP, not Simon and in my replies to him I always posted as MAP right up until he told me he was 30 minutes from me. Know what you're selling, don't oversell, but shout from the rooftops as to who you are and what you offer. I just volunteer here on MAP, but Twitter, FB, You Tube and Instagram are added to regularly. Much of our advertising is done by others on Twitter. Gain some followers and get some videos going. People re-tweet or recommend MAP all the time. It's surprising sometimes who follows you back. We have some very well known professional fighters follow us. David Haye springs to mind. People worry about trolls, but we only follow other martial artists, clubs, health and fitness professionals and the like. Anything we don't like gets blocked and we don't get involved in silly conversation.
You can't be all things to all men. If you are clear on what you offer and consistently provide it then you've done all you can. Then the moral obligation is on you to not mislead and to provide quality. Social media presence (as Simon pointed out) can be very useful in this day and age. Are you having retention issues or recruitment issues? If its the latter then maybe nobody wants what you are selling (not necessarily a poor reflection on you at all) and its then on you if you want to compromise on what you are. Edit - If the school website is the one in the link provided by DeadPool then I myself would be inclined to not train there.
Look up "Small Dojo, Big Profits" by Michael Massie and buy it - its is full of great advice and answers all these questions and more
If that IS your website, Step 1 needs to be to solicit help from a proofreader. That website is full of grammatical errors. And, while I get that it's not an English class, there are few quicker ways to erode consumer trust than to have advertising materials that reflect basic indifference. I'm not asking you guys to be writers. But find someone who is and ask for their help. It'll make you sound worlds smarter. "Agency's We've Serviced." "Agency" is singular, where you're talking about three distinct organizations. The apostrophe makes it possessive, as in "this agency's problem is that... " What you meant to say was "Agencies We've Serviced." "Location's and Time's." Again, the apostrophe makes it possessive. Or a contraction. As in "my time's my own," as a contraction of "my time IS my own." What you mean here is simply "Locations and Times." Finally, there's "Gallary and Video's." First, you've misspelled "Gallery." Second, you've got that apostrophe again. If you feel like I'm being nitpicky, think about this: I haven't even gotten around to reading your actual content yet. Because I was completely distracted by basic spelling and grammatical errors. And it won't just be me. You're targeting adults. Adults will notice these things and begin to draw conclusions about you and your operation based on them. Doesn't matter how awesome your system is if people don't get far enough to see it. If your flyers and notices are the same, that's the bulk of your advertising right there. Broken.
I didnt get far enough to notice grammatical mistake's. I stopped when I saw the rather poorly done logo. Get someone to sort your logo out and webpage design as well as proofread it. It does reflect badly and comes across as quite amateurish.
You also have an online store selling manuals. How much content is in these manuals? I do tutorial videos and handouts for students as aid memoir, so if there is only a little content in these manuals I'd not be selling them. The first thing I want to see is training content, not links to a store where I can buy additional material. I've just been on Facebook and Hannibal has just posted something along the lines of "stay tuned folks, something big and exciting big coming". Unreal Combat has also just posted information for his students and does so regularly. I know what is going on in their classes and in one case I'm 3 hours away and in the other I'm on the other side of the world. My point is students, or potential students want to know their coach is working hard for them.
