How To Create A Highly Effective Martial Art School Website

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:

1. People that want to find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible (for simplicity, we’ll call them “surfers”) -
2. 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.

Priorities

Posted by Mike Massie on July 21, 2009

If Ignorance Is Bliss, What Does Confusion Do For You?

Have you ever considered what your top priorities are as a new or aspiring martial arts school owner?

This is a topic that I’ve written about before, and I’m sure I’ll return to it again… probably because it’s something that new business owners confuse so often, and that confusion inevitably leads to disastrous consequences.

“And The Number One Priority For New Business Owners Is…”

This is something school owners get confused about - a lot. Too bad there aren't big huge road signs pointing the way to what you should really be focused on - which is getting new students!

Increasing revenues. Period. No two ways about it.

The hard cold facts of reality dictate that if you can’t pay your rent and your salary, you aren’t going to have your doors open for very long.

And, this is why I get so frustrated with school owners who think they can get by without spending money on marketing their schools.

Of course to me, it’s just counter-intuitive to think you can get new students and increase your enrollment without marketing.

But then again, over the last 15 years or so I’ve learned a thing or two. If I squint real hard and cross my eyes, I can actually remember a time when I thought just the act of starting a martial arts program was enough to attract students.

You know, like there was some sort of new-student-attraction-chi-energy that instructors possess that negates the need for having a good solid marketing plan in place. (And please, don’t contact me to tell me you have a chi kung exercise for that.)

Well, I quickly found out otherwise… and I’ve been learning how to market effectively ever since.

Having A High-Foot Traffic Location Isn’t What It Used To Be

The days of opening schools in high-foot-traffic areas (like shopping malls) and expecting that to be enough to fill your classes are long gone. Even if you can afford that sort of location (and if you can, why aren’t you just living off your trust fund like a good little trust fund baby?) there are too many activities to compete with these days to rely on foot traffic alone to fill your school.

You need more than just a big sign on the front of your building to capture the attention of your market… more than ever, you need multiple contacts with potential buyers to ensure that they pick up the phone or go online and contact you first when they are ready to enroll.

Sure, if you’re located next to the local grocery store, they’re going to see your school every time they need a gallon of milk or a carton of eggs… but what are the chances they’ll remember your name and phone number when they finally make the decision to enroll their kid in classes?

So, they are going to have to look you up online… BINGO!

That’s where your marketing still has to come into play, because if they find your competitor’s contact information online FIRST – guess which school gets the call?

Everything Else Is Just An Excuse For Having Crummy Marketing

While you may think your number one priority is teaching great classes, or making you sure you get that shiny new certification, or affiliating with the most reputable high-ranking instructors and organizations, or joining the latest “inner-secret-social-knitting-circle-and-business-mentorship group” – you’re dead wrong.

Sure, any of the above can make you a better instructor, help you pad your resume so you appear to be better qualified as an instructor, and shore up your ego… but they don’t count for much in the way of real, concrete actions that will help keep your doors open and grow your school.

In short, only revenue-building activities have any weight on the scales of your success or failure in business.

These revenue-building activities include:

1. Getting the phone to ring
2. Getting your email inbox overflowing with new leads
3. Getting new prospective students to walk through your front door
4. Converting a high percentage of your leads to memberships
5. Keeping a high percentage of the students you have enrolled

Now, students are always going to come and go – that’s a fact of life. No matter how dedicated they are, they move, get married, have kids, their job responsibilities change, etc.

So, you need to make getting a constant flow of new students through your front door your #1 priority.

Such A Simple Concept… So Why Do People Keep Getting It Confused?

I know, it seems so simple. So, why people keep getting it confused is anyone’s guess.

Of course, it wouldn’t have anything to do with the monthly mash-up of random martial arts management ideas that’s delivered to the front door of every school owner on the planet every month… would it?

Nah, it couldn’t be that.

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