| Friend,
It's not quite "happy back-to-school" time yet, but it's still close enough for today's email message to have an impact.
This week we're discussing the 4th Immutable Law of Running a Dojo, which is...
Thou Shalt Be Thy Own Marketing Director
If you've read this newsletter for any length of time, you've probably seen me use this phrase:
"A common mistake that school owners make is..."
So why am I always harping on common mistakes? Well, so you can avoid them, of course. And trust me, I've made most of those "common mistakes" myself.
And yet, some people still insist on stepping right on that rattlesnake, even after I pointed it out to them.
Well, one of the most common mistakes is thinking that you don't need to study marketing to succeed as a school owner. Wrong!
As I've said many times, being a school OWNER means being a business owner. "Business" being the key word. And, no business can survive without making a sale.
You are in the business of selling martial arts instruction, martial arts lessons, and martial art school memberships. And for your school to not just survive, but thrive, you need to make a sale every day.
The only way you can make a sale every day is if you have people coming through your front door every day. But in this day and age, you can't rely on foot traffic to get you leads.
Number one, high-foot-traffic locations are expensive. Number two, people are busy and the likelihood that they'll walk in your front door asking questions is a lot lower than it was ten or twenty years ago.
These days, most people would rather keep their head in their phone or tablet, and avoid making eye contact whenever possible. :)
So, you have to go where the people are, and entice them into inquiring about your services.
And let me repeat a very important point I made about two sentences ago, just in case you missed it...
Again, where are these people to be found?
With their heads in their mobile devices!
Yup, that's where the people are these days. Sure, you can still reach them using old school marketing methods (and many school owners do, by the way). But, reaching them online is certainly the easiest way to get inquiries right now.
To do that effectively, you need to be your own marketing director.
A marketing DIRECTOR doesn't necessarily know how to do all the technical stuff involved with running a marketing campaign.
He or she may not know how to do graphic design, or how to write sales copy (although a good marketing director should), or the ins and outs of Facebook ads and tracking pixels, or retargeting...
...but what a good marketing director does know how to do is plan a marketing campaign that works.
They study their market and they understand what they want. They know how to put together offers that attract interest. They know to hire experts to do the technical work for them. And they know how important it is to test ads and offers to find the one that works best.
A marketing director studies the psychology of why people buy, and they study their market. Then, they use that information to continually create fresh marketing campaigns to attract new customers to their client's businesses.
And if you are your own marketing director, well... then you are your own client.
So, what's the takeaway from all of this? - Expertise is essential. You must conduct a never-ending in-depth study of marketing. Become an expert on the theories of why people buy, and know your target audience!
- Technical expertise is not essential... at all. You don't need to be a web design or video editing or Photoshop or Facebook marketing wizard. You just need to know how to put together the ideas for marketing campaigns, so you can hire other people to do all the technical stuff for you.
- You need to become an idea machine. Your job as "marketing director" for your school is to continually be coming up with fresh new ideas for marketing campaigns, so you can test them out, throwing out the losers and tweaking the winners to get the most from your ad dollars.
Take my advice... if there's one thing you can do to ensure you have a successful and profitable school, it's doing what I suggest in this email.
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
Quick-start Guide to My Books and Resources: - Looking for a list of books and resources I've written? Click here! - Need business coaching to grow your dojo? Click here…
P.S. - Every year for the past fifteen years, a handful of my coaching clients have seen incredible growth in their dojos during the August to December season.
And every year for the past three years, I've seen clients go from struggling to prosperous during the back-to-school season. How? By digging deep into the information on my coaching site, asking questions in the coaching group, and then taking massive action on what they discover. This year, will you be one of them? Check out http://martialartsbusinessu.com and take the 7-day challenge. See for yourself why people are achieving life-changing success with my coaching program. And when you do, be sure to use coupon code "25off2017" to save $50 off your coaching program membership! | 