outrageous martial arts marketing

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 26th, 2011 | no comments

How can you cut through all the clutter and reach the best potential students for your school?

There are bunch of ways for sure.

But one of the best ways we’ve found over the years is to be “memorable” and even a bit outrageous.

So I wanta pull back the curtain on one of my most “Outrageously Effective Martial Arts Marketing” pieces.

This is not meant for everyone so – all you have to do is request it below and we’ll email it to you.

Just enter your info below…

Disney and Danger

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 23rd, 2011 | no comments

Disney & Danger

Here’s a question…

Does it make sense to emulate the “Marketing” of a BIG company?

For us “Small Time Operators” the safe answer is NO!

After all, those companies have huge budgets.

But there’s one part of their marketing we should pay attention too.

And that’s “Market Research.”

See, a big business has the big bucks to spend in order to find out “what their prospects want.”

Then (most of the time) those findings are turned over to the powers that be and messages, campaigns and ideas are created.

Marketing research also applies to demographic research.

For example… Did you know Wal-Mart does some pretty heavy and intensive demographic research? That research determines where they open and how big of a store they open.

Sometimes, I’ll ask a school owner over the phone to tell me about the demographics of their area. If there’s silence for more than four seconds I worry!

A Recent Disney Study…

If you teach kids you have to market to parents. Disney knows how to do this.

One of their recent Marketing Studies asked parents what they want for their children.

The overwhelming response was “they want their kids to be happy!”

Ten years ago academic skills and educational success ranked highest.

If you teach kids – this is stuff you need to be aware of.

It amazes me how most of the “Associations” and “Business Programs” still turn out marketing materials that haven’t changed since the 1990′s! This is flat out DANGEROUS to our Industry!

People are more pre-occupied now with numerous choices and distractions. To think an ad that talks about how “great martial arts are” and nothing else stands a chance is a pipe dream.

Pay attention to trends. Watch the research the big players do and put some marketing together that strikes a nerve and gets noticed at the same time.

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Facebook Secrets and Tips for Your Martial Arts Business Part 3

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 20th, 2011 | no comments

By Guest Blogger: Mike De Lucia

In the first two parts of this series, I explained how to move from a “Personal” page to a “Business Page” and why it’s vital that you do so. I also covered how to optimize that Business Page so it’s also a “Facebook Place,” allowing your students to announce to all of their Facebook Friends whenever they’re present at your school. Now, let’s look at how to make people want to read your Facebook page, share it with others, and even how you can help to determine what shows up on THEIR Facebook pages that will encourage them and their friends to come back and spend time on yours.

Tip #3 Be Active and Genuine on Your Page

Just like opening your dojo didn’t guarantee a steady flood of adoring fans pouring through the door (unless you’re really lucky or already famous), creating a high-quality Facebook page doesn’t guarantee that people will find it and “like” it. You need to tell people about it, include a “Find us on Facebook” reference on all marketing materials, and it needs to be worth their time. Your page needs to feature content that’s interesting. It needs to add value to peoples’ lives. It needs to inform, entertain, provoke thought, or why should they bother? It also needs to be genuine! People can smell a phony, so you have to really want your Facebook page to be an extension of your dojo and your own personality. Once you’ve got that working for you, there are some tricks that make it even more effective.

Trick #4 Editing Links

One type of “page content” that you’re likely to want to share with your page’s fans will be internet-based media, particularly articles, blogs, and videos. These are easy enough to share, and Facebook will automatically create a “headline” and “body text” for you based on what’s on the page you’re sharing. That’s terrific when it works, but sometimes you won’t be satisfied with the headline or body Facebook creates. What a lot of people never realize is that YOU CAN CHANGE THEM!! That’s right, simply click on the headline or body and edit them until you’re happy with them. You can shorten them, add to them, or change them completely!

Trick #5 Tagging

In the old days, “tagging” meant spray-painting graffiti on a wall. In the “age of Facebook,” however, you “Tag” people or businesses by including them or referencing them in a post, picture, or video. It’s easy, too! When you post on your wall or your page’s wall, you can “Tag” anyone who is a personal friend of yours, or any page that you have “liked,” by typing the @ symbol, followed by the first letter of their name. A list of people and pages that begin with that letter will appear. Just select the one you want and Facebook inserts it into your post. Big deal, right? Yes! Because it’s inserted as a Hyperlink – other people can click on it and jump to that individual’s or business’s page! Better still, your tagging of them now shows up on THEIR wall (particularly if you have your own personal Facebook Privacy setting for “Posts by Me” set to “everyone.”), which is again a great way to insert yourself into their page where their friends are likely to see it.

Tagging photos and videos works even better – there’s actually a “tag people” button on the photo or video’s page – just click it and start typing in the names of your Facebook Friends who are in it. That photo or video will then appear on THEIR Facebook page and on THEIR FRIENDS’ newsfeeds. It’s basically an ad targeted to people who know the people you know. You know?

Mike De Lucia is a writer, accomplished business executive, and martial arts enthusiast. Mike is currently the Director of Business Operations for Five Star Martial Arts in North Syracuse, NY. His martial arts background includes Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Iaido, Goju-Ryu, and Kenpo Karate, which he practices along with his wife and children. Mike blogs at www.virtualvellum.com.

Martial Arts Marketing Facebook Secrets Part 2

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 10th, 2011 | no comments

By Guest Blogger: Mike De Lucia

In part one of this series, I explained how to migrate a “Personal” Facebook page to a “Business” page and told you why that’s so important. Next, I’ll help you make your Business Facebook page MUCH more useful in spreading the word about your school, building customer loyalty, and having some fun with the technology.

Tip #2 – Be  a “Place” Too!

Congratulations, you have your own “Business” page! Now take it a step farther and become a “place.” Place pages are sort of like business pages, but it’s really geared toward serving mobile and smartphone users. You know, tweens, teens, and most adults these days! A “Place” page is just that: a page representing a physical location that people can go to. And when they’re there, it’s possible for them to tell people they’re there, which is a great boon for marketing your business. More of that in the next “trick,” but first – how to make a place page.

When you set up or edit your Business Page, making it a “place” is as easy as correctly filling in your school’s address information. When it’s working, you should see a map show up on your page’s “Basic Information” screen (accessed by clicking the “Edit Page” button). You can check or uncheck “show this map on the page,” but it’s probably best to have it there. That same map will then appear on the“Info” screen of your business’s Facebook page.

Now when smartphone users access your page through the “Facebook App,” which they can download from “touch.facebook.com” or “m.facebook.com,” they’ll have the option to “Check in” at your site. This is to be encouraged, but how and why do you encourage it?

Trick #3: Check-ins and Check-in Deals
Check-ins are great for two reasons. They show viewers of your page that you have an active community of people visiting you, which speaks well of your martial arts business. Better still, those “check-ins” show up on the Facebook page of the smartphone user who did the check-in. All of their friends will see that, “Jane is at Five Star Martial Arts.” And they’ll see it EVERY TIME she checks in there.
That’s a LOT of free, frequent, repetitive marketing for your martial arts school, and it shows all of Jane’s friends just how much she values her martial arts training. When they start thinking about martial arts for themselves or their friends, where are they likely to go? That’s right – it’s like you’ve inserted a commercial for your  martial arts business in the middle of Jane’s Facebook page and the page of every one of her friends (because they’ll all see it on their newsfeeds)!!
So now you need to encourage Jane to “Check In” whenever she’s at your dojo! One way to do that is just to ask, often, to “please check in on your smartphones when you’re here! It’s a great way to let everyone know how we’re doing and it encourages them to check us out!” That will work great with some of your students, so definitely do it. But others like to have incentives, and Check-ins make it easy!
Back on your “Edit Page” settings, you should see a “Deals” option on the bottom of the left-hand menu.  Click that, and it lets you create a “Deal” for smartphone users to take advantage of when they’re at your school. Think of it as a coupon for anyone with a smartphone that ONLY works when they’re standing physically at your school.

You get three types of deals to choose from, each of which serves a different purpose: a single deal (check-in once, get the deal), a multi-check-in deal (check in a certain number of times, THEN receive the deal), or a group check-in deal (a certain number of people must all check-in at once, then they all get the deal).

Detailing the advantages and limitations of each is an article unto itself, but do note that you can only have one active check-in deal at a time. Choose your type of deal, fill out the form fields, and then let everyone know about the deal. A favorite of mine is to offer a small discount – say $5 to $10 – off the regular price of a multi-week intro program. The customer feels (justly) that they’re getting an even better bargain, plus when they take advantage of the deal, they’re sharing it with all of their friends! That’s a good deal for both of you!

Be sure to check out part 3 of this series, where I’ll explain how you can encourage people to visit your Facebook page and more ways to insert your own Social Marketing messages into other peoples’ pages in a friendly, constructive way.

Get Started With Your Custom Facebook Page Right Here

Mike De Lucia is a writer, accomplished business executive, and martial arts enthusiast. Mike is currently the Director of Business Operations for Five Star Martial Arts in North Syracuse, NY. His martial arts background includes Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Iaido, Goju-Ryu, and Kenpo Karate, which he practices along with his wife and children. Mike blogs at www.virtualvellum.com

Build Your Martial Arts Business With a Powerful Adult Program

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 9th, 2011 | no comments

By Guest Blogger: Mark Slane

I would bet that most of you have fairly decent sized kid’s classes and don’t do quite so well with the adult market.  The main reason for this is you try to run youth and adult programs pretty much the same way.  You use the same martial art, the same layout and the same curriculum for the most part. A youth program and an adult program are like night and day.  Honestly, what works for growing a youth program is at times 180 degrees from what you must do to grow an adult program.

Classes at our gyms are fast paced, real world self defense and are a great workout.  Members wear t-shirts and shorts or sweat pants.  They don’t bow, don’t call me sir, aren’t treated like children if they are late or don’t want to do something in class.  We do this because we are not marketing and competing against the martial arts business down the street.  I am sorry to say this but you and I are unusual…most adults are not looking for martial arts.  Martial Arts have a negative connotation for most adults.  Instead of thinking that we are competing with other dojo’s we market and plan to compete against Gold’s gym, L.A. Fitness, Lifestyle Fitness and the other big box gyms.  Think about this.  If you ask 1000 people in your town if they are more interested in being able to punch and kick correctly or in losing 10 pounds I would bet 970 would say “losing 10 pounds!”

To this same end, add some fitness classes to your gym…CardioMMA, Crossfit or even the old cardio karate.   This is very important.  You are now not the “martial arts school” but a fitness and self defense Mecca!!  Is this a sell out?  If we believe that what we do is good for people and will keep people safe isn’t it better to help the most people possible?

One of the biggest mistakes martial arts schools make is that they throw new people into a regular class for their “intro.”  In USKMA gyms prospective members get a 1/2 hour intro then take a class the same evening.  After this class while they are totally worn out is the best time that we will ever have to sign them up.  Do not do an intro week, intro month, two class intro, etc.  They will never be more ready to join than after this first intro and class!

Adult Martial Arts Internet Marketing…
Your website has one job and one job only…to get people in to take your intro.  Nobody cares who trained you, how great you are, or even what you teach.  They want to know what it will do for them!  On your adult site get rid of any pictures of uniforms, people hitting and kicking or being hit or kicked, classes standing in strict lines, etc.  On our site our pictures are of a fitness model.  You need to put your intro special on the home page and tell prospective members how they’ll lose weight and get into shape with a workout that could save their lives and help them protect their loved ones.

Beat the competition by offering a lot and charge only one price.  We have a one price do it all philosophy.  We go against the “experts” who tell you to be the most expensive gym in town…be the Rolls Royce.   Anyone who has been to our classes knows that we are the Rolls Royce AND we are affordable.   They appreciate this and tell all their friends.

Why have an exclusive clientele and small classes?  Huge classes are so much more fun to teach, more energetic and prospective members think that you must really be the place to join because so many people are there!

In summary the way to get more adults in your martial arts school business/gym is to treat them like adults, make classes fun, give them actual fitness, show them the benefits over the box gyms and forget about forcing them into your style’s traditions and rules.  Go after the box gym crowd who are growing bored with their workouts.  You can show them real results unlike anything they can get on a treadmill!
For a Complete Library of Martial Arts Marketing for Adults Just Check Out our Martial Arts Business System Marketing and “Samples Section.” Get Access Here

Martial Arts Business Facebook Marketing Secrets Part 1

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 6th, 2011 | no comments

By Special Guest Blogger: Mike De Lucia.

Getting on Facebook is easy. Leveraging it to grow and market your business can be tough, though – especially because Facebook is often-changing and not always clearly documented. I’ve put together some of my favorite tips and related tricks – skills I’ve learned doing Facebook-based social marketing on a daily basis…

Tip #1 – Business Pages  are for Businesses

First up, you MUST have a Business page. This isn’t a trick, it’s just a fact, but it leads to a trick and it’s insanely important. If you’re using a “personal page” as your business, you’re in violation of  Facebook’s policies and could be shut down at any time. Think they’ll never find you? Do you have competitors? Because there’s nothing to stop your competitors from outing you to the Facebook police.

Besides, business pages are so far superior to personal pages for social marketing it’s just crazy not to use one.

For instance, did you know there’s a 5000-person limit on personal pages? Fan pages are unlimited (and you WANT that to be a problem, don’t you? You WANT 5000+ fans all generating leads and “buzz” about your school, right?). You get to add applications to your fan page, too – including a “Landing” or “Welcome” page that can even have embedded functionality – that means it can be used as a lead-generation tool! Personal pages cannot do that! Also, Business pages count for SEO (search-engine optimization) purposes, which means they’re growing your “Brand” on the internet. Personal pages don’t do that, either.

“But Mike,” (De Lucia) you might say, “I already have a Personal page that I’ve worked hard on over the years. I’ve got lots of Friends, pictures, videos. It’s already the face of my business. I can’t just give that up!” All true. Luckily, you don’t have to.

Trick #1 – Migrate Your Personal Page

It’s time to get you off that personal page of yours and move you to a full-featured Business Page – without losing your hard-earned “friends” or all of your content. When it comes to Facebook secrets, this one’s about as secret as they come.

First step – download all of your Facebook account’s information. Go to “Account” in the upper-right, then “Account Settings” and click “Learn” next to where it says “Download your Information.” Click the “Download” button, then click it again in the box that pops up. It may take a while to receive your email from Team Facebook, but once they’ve gathered your data, packed it up, and asked you to verify your identity, they’ll send you a compressed “zip” file with all your data including all of your posts. It’s important that you complete this process, including receiving the file, before you continue with your migration, or it may (will) be lost.

Next step – the actual page migration. It’s pretty easy, actually, and all begins on this page: https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=19691. Click where it says “here” and proceed to set up your new martial arts business Facebook page. When it’s done, you’ll have all the functionality of a business page at your disposal. Remember, this process is irreversible, and be sure to set your own personal Facebook account as an administrator. Which actually leads me to…

Trick #2 – Posting on Your Own Facebook Martial Arts Business Page

Another poorly-documented feature of Facebook is the ability to turn off the requirement that business page admins always post “AS” that page. Sometimes you want to post as the “face” of your business, but other times it makes more sense to post as yourself. To have the choice, you simply have to uncheck a box in your page’s settings. Click the “Edit page” button in the upper-right of your page, then choose “Your Settings” from the menu at the right. UN-check the box next to “Always comment and post on your page as” and save your changes. Voila! You now have the choice to post either as “Sensei Napoli” or as “Five Star Martial Arts” – you’ll see a link on the right-hand side of your page that lets you “Use Facebook as Five Star Martial Arts.”

In parts 2 and 3 of this series, I’ll explain how to make your Martial Arts Business a Facebook Place, with all the advantages thereof, and I’ll explain how Tagging isn’t just for graffiti artists anymore – it’s an integral part of a thorough Facebook Social Martial Arts Marketing Strategy!

Mike De Lucia is a writer, accomplished business executive, and martial arts enthusiast. Mike is currently the Director of Business Operations for http://www.fivestarkarate.com/ in North Syracuse, NY. His martial arts background includes Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Iaido, Goju-Ryu, and Kenpo Karate, which he practices along with his wife and children. Mike blogs at http://virtualvellum.blogspot.com/

Four Part Martial Arts Marketing Mix

Posted by Mike Dolpies on May 3rd, 2011 | no comments

Before I get to the four part martial arts marketing mix let’s get something clear…

This approach is the evolution of about three years of throwing a whole lot of “ish” up against the wall.

You should also know there was a progression.

The famous Marketing Guru Jay Conrad Levinson talks about progression in his book, Guerrilla Marketing. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember it something like this…

“Don’t jump media!” What he meant was you’re not gonna (when you’re a small biz) open up shop and go straight to buying TV commercials. You have to add media on level by level.

Three years ago his (the client I’m referring to) marketing consisted of getting as much press coverage as he could. He’s been in a bunch of newspapers and magazines in his area. He’s also been featured on morning and evening news. And he also did (and still does) a few guest appearances for local groups.

Of course, his internet marketing has always been solid. Recently he stepped up and got more aggressive adding more domains and some mobile websites.

At my urging he’s explored direct mail (but he needs to do more of it).

After all this he arrived at his current four-prong approach.

Now – keep in mind, he still does the other stuff– but this stuff is what’s been kicking butt for him…

1- TV Commercials: You wouldn’t believe how cheap these things have gotten if you know what you’re doing. I had a lot of fun working on one Mixed Martial Arts commercial and one martial arts fitness/self-defense commercial. Both have been real winners and have been great for his martial arts business.

2- A Well Placed Billboard: I must admit, I was first skeptical about this. I helped with a little bit of wording for it. But all the while I was telling him to “be careful.” (Hey, that’s my job – I look out for peeps!) But, it works to bring in a steady flow of leads to his business. The billboard has been great for his Martial Arts Fitness/Self-defense program.

3- Aggressive Internet Marketing: He’s steadily been adding domains over the years. As new competitors pop-up we analyze their sites and then draw a strategy to out-rank them for key terms. Add to this his custom Facebook page and he’s got most bases covered.

4- Mobile: With this he’s been steadily looking ahead. Text message marketing, QR Codes and Mobile Landing Pages will evolved into a full mobile website really soon.

These four are certainly not the “end all be all” of martial arts business marketing. But this mix and other things he’s doing brought in 34 leads in the last 7 days. Not too bad!

If you wanta get started with your own martial arts marketing mix.

If you want some “coaching” on implementing this stuff so your school grows,

There’s a lot we can do for you – but it may be best to just try our “intro lesson.”

Just  Press Here go to Martial Art of Business and Find Out  About our 30 Day Trial.