Hello folks, Your input please. I wondered how many of you Instructors have websites or links that help you advertise your dojo, etc. Views and comments also please on how much of a help or a hindrance you find the internet as well. I shall be covering all types of advertising medium, including, newspaper, Journals, Mass emailing (Cooler wouldn't know anything about that), advertising in local shops/stores/sports centres, word of mouth, etc. Students please would you leave comments about how you found out about your club and what you feel would be the most effective way of advertising... To all: Please can I have your comments about how much of a help or hindrance you find the internet also. I have several bookmarked sites for kata for instance, history of the founder and information about related martial arts. I realise these are no substitute for the training and a good teacher but your comments would be appreciated. Don't forget to explain what your reasons are for each! The more people respond the more rounded the article will be - I am counting on you! Thanks
Our school uses a website, which I run.... But it is offline at the moment being relocated to a new address. I think the internet, demos, and flyers are the best advertising Rob
Obviously I am bias on this subject I think the internet is a great medium if used properly. It opens up a whole new world for martial artists as they can talk to other martial artists from around the world. They can find out about other arts that would otherwise be closed to them. On saying that the best way to advertise your club is through the newspapers. As more people still read newspapers than check out the web. Cooler
the way I found out about most martial arts was through magazines or word of mouth although in my home town you always got strange looks from people if you were stood in the newsagent looking at MA mags... or was that just me? Cuddles
I found out about my club through word of mouth while I was at uni. I asked around about the various clubs available and then chose the one best suited to my needs at the time. Big fan of using the net, good way of finding out what other people in the martial arts are talking about and also find out why they study the martial arts. Also like the fact that you can read up on the history and development of all the different styles and arts. More and more I think that people will make the net their first port of call when it comes to looking for a new club.
The object is to find an art that suits you, that will have some longevity. I like people who come in by word of mouth. They are usually in front of you because they like what they have heard. So they are choosing an art that suits them. Newspapers are ok as an advertising medium, so long as you are not saying Black Belt in 3 minutes. Newspapers are really at their best, when they show you competition successes from a given club. Better yet if you get someone to write an article. The Net can be either. Some sites preach a lot of stuff that doesn't exist, while others are very understated. As Cooler said, it really depends how you use it! MA magazines used to be the thing, but they seem to be transferring onto the net little by little!
Just a reminder folks, especially as we have more people on the forum now, please complete the poll! The poll closes in 3 weeks time and I would like as much of your assistance as possible to complete this article. Thank you.
I think the internet is pretty useful ... but by no means a miracle for advertising. I first put together a web page for Asian Fighting Arts (where I trained in Kali and Silat in Dayton, OH) in '96 or '97. We didn't get a whole lot of hits at first ... I believe it was, on average, about 2 hits / day ... and I would guess most of those were students of our school. I submitted it to all the search engines I could, still not many hits ... but still not many hits, I think the average went up to 3 / day and that was still mostly students of the school. Then I went out and e-mailed a bunch of other martial arts sites and requested a link exchange. Most of them agreed. After that, our average of hits / day went up to about 5 / day ... but our links page was somewhat cumbersome. In '99, though, I revamped the website (and have since revamped it again) and, in the process of doing so (just out of curiosity), I ran some searches on various search engines. Everywhere I looked (obviously, I was searching for Kali and Silat related sites) there was a link to our website. Some were pages that I had done an exchange with. But many of them weren't. And on most of the sites where we were not listed, we were linked on one of the sites they linked to. In short, I planted the seeds and our presence within the SE Asian MA web community had blossomed all on its own. Now, we get around 15 hits / day at our website and we regularly (though not real frequently ... maybe once every 2 months) we get an e-mail about someone interested in what we do or wanting to visit while they're in town, or looking for something for a friend in our area. The build-up to this was pretty slow and took about 4 years to come to fruition. But, the way I look at it, the website was relatively cheap and easy to maintain. In the long run, I think it pays off. If someone's looking for a quick turn-around, I think they'll be disappointed unless they really bust their hump with an aggressive ad campaign ... but then they run the risk of getting labeled a "spammer" and who wants that? Mike
I have to agree with Mike on the fact that websites are a real b*tch to promote and get up and running... not as easy as everyone makes out I initally found my club through my best friend who was going at the time (i was 10 when I started), and I found sempai's phone number on the net a couple of years ago when I wanted to start back. Most people come to our club by word of mouth and stuff they see in the newspapers about us. Local demostartions are a good idea to promote a club, we do a quite a few of those too.
I think it is sad that the Internet has so little MA information on it. Trying to find information about a specific style or a list of clubs in your area is next to impossible. That's why the Club directory on this site is such a good idea - The problem is that it is next to impossible to keep it up to date.
