| Friend,
Next week I'm going to be finishing up our series on why martial art schools fail by discussing marketing, and how poor or insufficient marketing can tank a dojo, while good marketing (and doing plenty of it) can make a dojo a success.
I believe that many martial arts instructors shy away from marketing because they believe a martial artist is supposed to be humble, so they don't feel comfortable blowing their own horn.
I used to be the same way when I first started out. I thought that all I needed to do was teach awesome classes and share real martial arts with people... and that once they saw the difference between watered down, commercial martial arts and what I was teaching, they'd flock to my school.
Yeah, that never happened. :)
It didn't take me long to realize that word of mouth can take months or even years to kick in for a business, and that even the best products and services need marketing to get the word out that they exist.
So, I learned to love marketing early on in my career as a school owner. Moreover, once I figured out how to create effective marketing campaigns, that knowledge pretty much solved my student and cash flow issues in my dojo.
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! - Looking for low-cost business coaching to grow your dojo? Click here…
P.S. - I wrote this article to serve two purposes - to provide information that my readers would find useful, and also to pitch one of my products. This is what is known as content marketing. Consider how you can use content marketing to get the word out about your dojo and the programs you offer... For example, you could write an informative and entertaining article on how martial arts can help children who are being bullied, about women's self-defense, or about how martial arts offers a great workout... the options are endless. Then, end the article with an invitation to try out your programs, and include a special offer for an intro package, or ten free classes, or some other deal to encourage the reader to contact you. P.S.S. - If you hate writing or if you just aren't very good at putting your thoughts on the page, hire someone to write those articles for you. One of my clients recently hired someone on a freelancer website to write ten articles for his school blog. The cost? Five bucks an article! So, there's no reason why you can't add content marketing to the list of marketing methods you employ each and every month. P.S.S.S. - Be sure to share your articles on social media after you post them. And make sure you have a good graphic to post with the article link! Check out the Martial Arts Business Daily Facebook page for examples of how to do this. |
