Posted by Mike Massie on February 10, 2010
Setting A Marketing Budget When You’re Just Starting Out…
You probably don't have a lot of money to throw at your marketing... but that doesn't mean you shouldn't set a reasonable marketing budget.
Early on (when I taught part-time), I spent all my profit on advertising. ALL of it.
I just figured if I wanted to be a full-time school owner, I had to act like one.
So, if I profited $500 or $800 in a month, I spent it on ads (and later, on equipment and saving to move into a full-time location).
Once I hit the point where I was getting enough students and leads, and I knew what it took to get those leads each month, I budgeted that amount.
No Hard And Fast Rule On What To Spend On Your Marketing Budget
There’s no hard and fast rule for what to allot to your marketing budget. The 10% figure I give in Small Dojo Big Profits is just a guideline. And, I actually had someone from another industry giving me a hard time about that figure at one point.
My response was that if you don’t set a guideline, you’ll either overspend or underspend. Then again, 10% is a good figure once you’re up and running, but 10% of nothing, or 10% of a few hundred bucks is not enough to get your business off the ground and make it grow.
Just Make Sure You Spend It On What Works
Just remember, a lot of what you spend on advertising early on will be to find out what works and what doesn’t in your area. To save you some money, things that are working well for instructors right now are:
- Internet/SEO
- signage (permanent/building, snipe signs, banners, vehicles)
- door-to-door fliers and door hangers
- direct mail (postcards are cheapest – but this takes a sharp marketer to do right)
- social media marketing
And remember, getting press coverage is free. Hire someone to write your press releases if writing isn’t your forte, or trade service for service.
Posted by Mike Massie on January 25, 2010
When you know how to get publicity, it's easy to get your business in the news...
One of the best things I ever did for my school was to learn how to get publicity.
In fact, I credit it with much of my early success, since I had almost no money or credit when I started my first school.
And, that’s a lot of the reason why I was able to go from ZERO students in a town where I knew NO ONE…
To over 150 students in under two years.
The Best Things In Marketing Are FREE… Or $10 In This Case
And the best thing is – it’s FREE… and anyone can do the same thing, if they know how.
Well with the economy being what it is, I’ve decided to start releasing a series of killer reports at the low, low cost of just $10.
And, the first one tells you how to do exactly what I did to get all that publicity…
Not only that – it also explains how to leverage the internet to get even MORE media attention for your school.
Don’t wait – the price is going up at the end of the week.
Get it here for just $10:
http://thepressreleasetemplate.com/
Posted by Mike Massie on January 23, 2010
Why It Pays To Hire A Professional SEO
All this stuff may be confusing to you, but you still need to get a high search ranking in Google for your business.
So, Gary is one of our Fighting Fit and Self Defense program instructors who is starting a school right now. He’s hired me to do some additional online marketing for him, first to create a custom blog, and now most recently he took me up on the SEO offer I sent out yesterday…
So, yesterday afternoon I went to work on his SEO campaign.
As of this morning, he has 4 of the top ten listings in Google for two of his most important keyword phrases in Google. Not only that, but the main site we’re driving traffic to went up about 2 – 3 spots in the rankings for those keywords as well.
Of course, there’s a lot more work to do… I won’t be satisfied until he has three of the top five spots for his keywords.
The Importance of Having A High Search Ranking In Google
Why is this so important?
Because, here’s the breakdown of the average clickthrough rates for the top ten listings for any search engine results page in Google:
Spot #1: 42.3% of clicks…
Spot #2: 11.92% of clicks…
Spot #3: 8.44% of clicks…
Spot #4: 6.03% of clicks…
Spot #5: 4.86% of clicks…
Spot #6: 3.99% of clicks…
Spot #7: 3.37% of clicks…
Spot #8: 2.98% of clicks…
Spot #9: 2.83% of clicks…
Spot #10: 2.97% of clicks (not a typo)
Obviously, it pays to have the higher search ranking spots in Google for the most important keywords in your local market.
And, the results schools get when they do bear this out. In a mid-size market (a town of about 100,000 in the Midwest) one school owner I know of gets 60 leads a month from his website…
And wouldn’t you know it, he has the number one spot in Google for “(his town) martial arts”. I know this because one of his close friends is thinking of hiring me to do the same thing for him in his own town.
So, imagine what it could do for your business to dominate the top five spots in Google for “(your city) martial arts” in a large metropolitan area?
Or, even in a smaller town – even ten leads a month (actually, I was getting 5 – 10 leads a week in a town of 10,000) could make a huge difference in your bottom line.
If You Want To Dominate The Search Engines In Your Area…
I still have one spot left for a school who wants to achieve multiple top ten rankings for their school in the next 90 days. Call me at 512-535-6858 if you’d like to get started (leave a message on my voice mail if it’s over the weekend). Remember, I guarantee my work – packages start at $399 per month, and if you don’t get results in 90 days I keep working for free until you do.
- Mike Massie
P.S. - No lie, that’s a deep discount off my “real” rates because I know the martial arts market so well. It makes it easier for me because there’s less research involved. So I can charge martial arts school owners less for the same results. But the downside is, I have to limit how many packages I sell at that rate. Sorry, but I can only take so many clients at that deep of a discount.
P.S.S. – If you want to know more about my internet marketing firm, check out http://moderndigitalmarketing.com.
Posted by Mike Massie on January 6, 2010
Time To Update Your Website? Let’s Do It Properly…
Effective web marketing caters to the right audience and resonates with the buyer. Your martial arts website's purpose is to get leads, so focus it exclusively on that goal.
There is simply no excuse for having a lackluster website in the information age.
Almost everyone uses the internet these days to research purchases before they buy. That’s why it’s imperative that you keep your site updated and fresh, much like rotating the inventory in your school store.
With it being the New Year, right now is the best time to update your website with new information on your business, especially to announce new hours, specials, and programs. So, rather than doing it halfway, look at your entire site and overhaul your content to maximize your martial arts website’s effectiveness.
And I’m going to tell you how…
Catering To Two Types Of Site Visitors
There are two types of people who will visit your site:
- People that want to find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible (for simplicity, we’ll call them “surfers”) -
- And people who want as much information as possible so they can make an informed decision (we’ll call them “researchers”) -
Remember, there’s a reason people research goods and services on the internet before they make a purchase (actually, two reasons).
- They are generally time-strapped and need information fast,
- And they want to get the most up-to-date information possible.
Your job is to provide them with exactly what they are looking for – no more, no less. So, you need to have something for both…
How To Make Sure They Contact You
For the site surfers, your contact info needs to be front and center at the top of your site. Also, you must have a lead capture form on every page possible, as well as an easily located “Contact Us” page.
Be aware that this type of website visitor will skim your information. So, use section headlines to summarize your most important information, and bullet points to provide short, concise benefits for your “surfing” prospects.
Your site also needs to load fast, so cut back on the flash and graphics and keep your site files down as much as possible.
Hint: Multiple videos embedded on the same page can cause a page to load slowly. So, at most embed one or two videos to a page. But by all means – DO have video on your site! YouTube has made it easy for anyone to use video as an online marketing tool, and any school owner would be foolish not to take full advantage of it.
For people who are “researchers”, you should have plenty of information on each of your programs. And, it should be written in such a manner that it caters to the target audience.
And, no matter what the type of site visitor, you must have a call to action on every single page of your site.
Don’t over-complicate this – just tell them what to do and give them a darn good reason to do it. “Call today for more information on classes and to take advantage of our FREE registration special!”
You Need To Have A Clear And Unified Marketing Message
Finally, your website content needs to have a unified tone and theme. Tone is the attitude of the writer conveyed by their choice of vocabulary and sentence structure. Your tone can be light, friendly, serious, upbeat… but above all it must resonate with your target audience!
The mistake most school owners make in writing the content for their martial arts websites is too much variation in tone across the site. When you write one section of your site content in one tone or theme, and another on the opposite end of the spectrum, it can create confusion or skepticism in your prospect’s mind.
Your marketing message is the second half of this equation. This relates to the tone of your site, but it has more to do with what you’re saying than with how you’re saying it. Your overall marketing message should be summed up in 17 words or less, and it should convey your U.S.P. (unique selling proposition).
Once you can do this, your entire site’s content should revolve around your marketing message.
Why is this important? For starters, sending mixed signals to your prospects will create confusion, and a confused mind does not buy.
Second, it’s easiest to sell what you believe in. So, your marketing message should be in complete harmony with your own personality and values.
Wrapping Up Today’s Article On Martial Arts Websites
Look, I know this sounds like a lot to think about, but all you really have to remember are a few key points:
- Update your site regularly. If your site doesn’t currently allow you to do this, get a new site that allows you to edit and update it at will.
- Make it easy for people to contact you, and give them a good reason to do so.
- Provide enough information to satisfy the researchers, and put your most important information in section headings and bullets for surfers.
- Be consistent in your tone and marketing message across your entire site.
- Make sure your marketing message is in line with your core values.
That’s it! All that’s left is to take action on what you’ve learned from this article. Doing so will leverage your martial art school website as a valuable tool to grow your school.
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Need help with your web marketing? I’ve helped dozens of martial arts school owners to improve their Google rankings and to get more leads from their web marketing. If you’d like to find out more about how your school can get more leads and enrollments through better web marketing, click here to contact me.
Posted by Mike Massie on November 5, 2009
Know Thy Image
I fully expect some clown to start offering martial arts for pets or some such nonsense at some point - which would be an extreme case of trying to offer something for everyone... or every-pet, in this case.
Trying to be all things to all people is a sure-fire way to become nothing to no one. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t diversify into having multiple programs for multiple age demographics. Not at all… in fact, for most school owners and in most locations I think it’s a mistake to just go after a single demographic.
Know What Pays Thy Bills
However, I do think you need to know what pays the bills, and be practical about pursuing that demographic and making it the priority in your school. For example…
In my first school, I built the entire school on kids programs. That was my whole image, and even though I taught adult classes, fitness classes, and so on, my entire image was tied up in being a kid-friendly school.
But in my most recent school, I focused more on presenting the message that we had programs for the whole family. Still, I wanted to teach more adults, so I focused more on that.
The thing is, getting kids in your school is usually the easiest task. It’s the adults that are much harder to attract. That’s why I always go for the kid’s market first, then go after the adults once the kid’s programs are paying the bills.
Know Thy Demographic
What’s that have to do with image?
Well, all my ads are pretty much middle of the road as far as raciness goes. The raciest thing I’ve ever run was for my boot camp, and that’s because the model showed midriff and had a belly piercing (it looked good, though – the ads performed well).
Mostly, I’ve stuck with mom-friendly stuff, because in the areas I operated in most of my clients and decision-makers were moms.
Know Thy Target Market
Here’s something to consider, though…
Say you run a gym that’s MMA oriented, and your enrollment is mostly made up of the 20- and 30-something, tatted up, Affiliction-wearing guys.
Chances are good that your kids classes are going to be made up of kids from those households.
So, you’ll still get some “contact” enrollments just by virtue of farming your existing clientele – it’s just going to fall out that way.
But, that “bad boy” image isn’t going to go over well with families who just walk in off the street. Your average soccer mom is going to be turned off by it, and she’ll take her kids down the street to the plain-vanilla-typical-suburban-family-image school down the street.
This is just one example, and I think you can see the converse also applies. If your school is viewed as a “kiddie” school, chances are good that will work against you if you are marketing hard core MMA or adult self-defense programs.
Know Thy Image As It Applies To Thy Demographic
This is why it’s important to understand the demographics of your area… so you can make sure you don’t have an image disconnect between the image your marketing projects and your local market.
In more densely populated urban areas, it may be possible to pick and choose your ideal student by targeting a particular demographic. This is what you see advertisers doing in mass media marketing – the audience is broad enough to allow the advertiser’s to pick and choose their market to a certain extent.
However, your market reach is effectively only 5-10 miles from your location (ten being on the extreme edges of your market).
So, the demographic found in that geographical area absolutely dictates what your marketing image should be.
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Questions? Comments?
Let Mike know! Post your comments below…
