I received some questions about how to use videos to market martial arts programs on Facebook. So, in today's email I'm going to address that topic, and explain how to do it.

Step #1: Make Sure You Have A Solid Marketing Video

This first step is where most school owners trip themselves up. Understand, what you're really doing when you create a marketing video is creating content for others to consume. So, whether you post your video on YouTube, Facebook, or your website, you need to make sure it's something people will want to watch.

Second, you have to make sure your video doesn't look like it was shot by your seven-year-old. Get Chris' course on creating martial arts marketing videos, or buy one of his "dojo videos" and use that if you don't want to create your own.

Just make sure the video you post looks professional. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does need to be "viewable," meaning shot with good lighting, good composition, etc. And as far as the subject matter goes, there are a couple of ways to approach this.

One way is to shoot a video with a lot of action clips featuring people sweating and smiling. Another approach is to do a "talking head" video where you're talking about a topic that is of immediate interest to your target audience. Either approach can work, so long as the content of the video is of interest to your audience.

Step #2: Posting the Video

The first step after you get a great marketing video is to post it directly to your Facebook business page (you do have one, right?). From there, you have two options to get more mileage from that video, and both require dropping some scratch on your video.

Why? Because post reach on Facebook is dismal now, unless you boost a post or run it as an ad. So, you'll need to budget a few bucks to boost that video if you want people to see it.

Boosting a post on your page is simple... just go to your FB page, find the video, click the "boost" button, and voila! Instant market reach. Set a budget for a few dollars a day, because in most cases videos will get a lot of views for not a lot of money, so you can set your daily ad spend lower than you would on an image ad.

Step #3: Running It As An Ad

Speaking of ads, of course your next choice is to run that video as a stand-alone ad using Ad Manager on Facebook. The benefit for doing this is (if you have your Instagram account connected to your Facebook page) that your video ad will also show on Instagram as well. And, unlike a regular Instagram post, the ad will link directly to whatever page or website you choose when creating the ad.

Granted, some of my clients say that their ROI from Instagram isn't that great. But, I've had good success with it.

One thing that takes more consideration when running a Facebook ad is your target audience. When you boost a post, its easy, because nine-times-in-ten you're going to boost it to your page followers and their friends. With an ad, however, you have the option to target a specific audience.

I don't have time to get into demographics and ad targeting in this email, but I will say this is a very powerful feature of Facebook ads that Google simply cannot match. So, I suggest that you read up on audience targeting on Facebook and use it to your advantage.

Step #4: Rinse and Repeat

Iteration, right? Find what works, and repeat it over and over again. When you notice that the response and engagement on a video is petering out, then it's probably time to purchase or create a new video, and start the process all over again.

And I should mention that it's perfectly normal for an ad to have a finite lifespan. So, you should be prepared to replace old video ads with newer ones every so often. Just watch your ad stats, and start working on a new one when the old one is slowing down.

But, DON'T FIX IT IF IT ISN'T BROKEN. In other words, if a boosted video is getting views and clicks, KEEP RUNNING IT! Add some money to the budget to keep it going until it stops delivering clicks and views.

It drives me nuts when a client decides they're going to spend $50 bucks on an ad, and no more, and then they stop running the ad when the $50 budget runs out... even though it was still producing clicks and views!

Look, even if you don't get any phone calls right away from your video ads or boosted videos, that's perfectly alright, so long as you are getting views. The reason why I say this is because someone might have to see your video two or three times before they respond and call or visit your site. So, keep those videos going.

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That's it in a nutshell... video marketing on Facebook. Hopefully, this info will help you get more students in your school this Spring and Summer.