Should Demographics Dictate Your Martial Arts School’s Image?

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…

Quitting Your Day Job to Start a Martial Art School

Posted by Mike Massie on August 4, 2008

Gary wrote in last week to ask:

Q: “I currently earn $45,000 a year… So, at $99/month per student, I could replace my income and pay for my school expenses at about 45 students. Is this a reachable goal in, 1 year, two years?”

A: Yes, it is a very reasonable goal, but you aren’t going to be able to pay your expenses on a studio and pay yourself $45K a year with only 45 students.

That may cover your rent in an area where lease space is cheap, but you have to consider how much your utilities, advertising, and miscellaneous costs (supplies, cash flow to stock your Pro Shop, etc.) will be each month and factor that in as well.

I currently spend about $800 a month on advertising to generate approximately 20 leads a month, and we typically convert about half of those into memberships each month. (Update: We now spend only 25% of this amount on advertising and marketing due to stepping up our online marketing efforts. – MM)

Drop out rates are climbing due to the economy, so while we are still doing fine, we are planning to spend more money on our marketing this fall to make up for the students who have decided that their other luxuries are more important.

I suggest you use the worksheets in my business manual to determine realistically what your monthly expenses will be, and send those numbers to me so I can look them over. Then, you’ll know where you need to be, enrollment-wise, before you can quit your job.

The good news is, if you teach “X” martial arts you are offering a popular program that tends to do well with adults. However, I would advise you to look at teaching fitness classes as well, such as kick boxing bag classes.

Every “X” school I know makes over half their income marketing fitness martial arts and teaching fitness kick boxing. It’s a much broader audience to market to than self-defense, so be sure to include it in your class offerings.