Earlier in the week, we established that:

A. Most marketing sucks, and -

B. One reason why most marketing sucks is due to bad sales copy -

Today we're looking at the second reason why martial arts marketing ads and campaigns can fail, and that is due to...

THE WRONG MESSAGE

This actually happens a lot more often than you might think. If you listened to The Tip of The Week in the podcast I released yesterday, you heard me talk about creating personas to represent your ideal customer.

This is part of a process that is essential to ensuring that your ads work. When I got certified in conversion optimization for online marketing, the classes I took emphasized personas a lot.

And I'll be honest - I hated it. I thought it was a big waste of time. But then I realized something...

What I realized was that over the last 30 years, I've come to know the martial arts market quite intimately. That's because I've studied it and all the various niches within our industry.

I know both sides too - the martial artists, and our market.

So, that's why I thought it was a waste - because I'd spent so much time studying my market, I didn't feel like I needed to create a detailed persona of my ideal client.

And once I understood that I'd need to go through the same process if I were entering an entirely new market, I embraced the concept of creating personas completely.

Now, here's the part where I tell you why you need to create a persona of your ideal customer. The reason for this is because most of the martial arts instructors I've known think they understand their market, but they really don't.

Most don't delve deep into demographic data for their immediate area.

Most don't drive around to busy businesses and commercial centers within a five-mile radius of their school, simply to observe and study the type of people who are spending money near them.

Most don't look at things like race, gender, income, occupation, cost of living, marital status, average household size, major political affiliations, dominant religious beliefs, level of education... I could go on and on.

But this is how you truly learn what makes your market tick. And often, you find out that the persona you had in your head for your target market doesn't really exist in your local area at all.

In other words, you discover who your REAL market really is.

And that's how you avoid sending out the wrong message in your ads and marketing campaigns. Because think about it - if you're targeting the wrong market, then how can you possibly be sending the right message?

You have to know how your market thinks. You have to understand their deepest desires and their most important goals. You have to know what keeps them up at night, and what sets their hearts racing.

Because without that knowledge, you may as well be speaking an entirely different language in your ads. 

So if you haven't gone through this process yet, and studied your local market in depth and thoroughly, you're pretty well sunk before you even get out of the harbor.

And if that's the case, and you're struggling to get students, I can almost guarantee it's why your ads and marketing campaigns aren't working.

So, do yourself a favor and spend some time doing some market research this weekend. Then, spend some more time building a detailed persona of your ideal customer.

Then, and only then, will you be able to sit down and write an ad that speaks specifically to that person...

...and that's when your ads will really start to get results.