Why Your 20-Year-Old Marketing Doesn’t Work Anymore
Posted by Mike Massie on July 14, 2009
“You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.” – Charles F. Kettering
Stuck In The 90’s, Longing For The 80’s… That’s Where Most Of Your Competition Lives
Who would have thought this movie would usher in the golden age of martial arts business?
I actually started my journey in the martial arts in the early 80’s. 1984 was the year The Karate Kid was released in theaters, and when Lee Van Cleef and Sho Kosugi were running around in black pajamas in the T.V. series The Master.
Back then you could swing a dead cat and hit someone who wanted to take traditional martial arts classes.
Every kid wanted to be either a ninja or washing cars for a karate master. The economy had shown a strong upsurge after recession, the dollar was strong, unemployment was down, and incomes were rising. It was the “golden age” of the martial arts business industry.
Fast forward to the late 90’s… this internet thing is really taking off! Venture capitalists were throwing money at dot coms like cheap rice at a wedding. Although other parts of the world were suffering through stagnant economic growth, the U.S. economy was booming. High-paying jobs were plentiful, credit was easy to get, and the dollar was strong… a trend that would last well into the new millennium.
But alas, the good old days are long gone. Too bad most of the industry hasn’t figured that out yet.
The Internet Kills Simple Easy Advertising
One thing people in the industry have failed to notice is that not only has the economy changed – the way we find and attract new students has changed as well. In fact, it’s changed dramatically…
For big business, the era of making big bucks selling average products through massive advertising budgets has ended. Why? They can no longer use television advertisement to monopolize the public’s attention like they could in previous decades.
“What we’ve learned is this: In an era of too much noise and too much clutter and too many choices and too many channels and too much spam, you can’t make a good living by interrupting people over and over.” – Seth Godin
For smaller local businesses like martial arts studios, this has resulted in a slightly different fallout. We’ve never been able to take advantage of mass media to market our schools – so the way we reached the majority of our local market was through using:
- Yellow pages ads -
- Newspaper advertising -
Now, tell me – where’s your copy of the local phone book? Can you remember the last time it was even delivered to your doorstep?
And how many people do you know who actually read – I mean really read – the newspaper? Why pay $1.50 when I can get the news for free on Yahoo or Google?
Face it – the good old days of reaching 80 – 90% of your local market using phone book and print ads are long, long gone…
And the following stats reveal EXACTLY where those eyeballs have gone:
Percentage of U.S. households with an internet connection:
- Some college or associate’s degree: 69 percent
- Bachelor’s degree or higher degree: 84 percent
And, 97% of people with online access will research products and services online before they purchase -
Note: These are buyers, the people with money – in other words, our market.
So, when nearly 100% of educated shoppers research online before they buy a product or service – where do you think you need to be advertising?
Of course, most of you already know this (thankfully I have smart, savvy readers). But I also know that a lot of you are not advertising online yet, and many of you who are advertising online aren’t doing it effectively.
The reason is that there is still a huge technology gap in online marketing for small business owners. While large corporations can hire a whole staff of web designers and search engine specialists to handle their online marketing for them – we obviously have not been able to afford that luxury.
How You Can Quickly Get Over The Online Marketing Technology Gap
Thankfully, the technology gap has shrunk considerably in recent months, allowing small businesses to market online cheaply and effectively.
In fact, for less than the cost of a single cheap newpaper ad, you can now run an ongoing local online marketing campaign that is:
- Targeted to within five miles of your school…
- Listed in the most important local search engines: Yahoo Local and Google Maps…
- Pushed out to major websites like CNN, Food Network, Facebook, and thousands of other popular sites…
- Optimized and monitored for optimum performance…
- Measurable – you get to see how your campaign performs (no news or yellow pages ad could ever offer that)…
- And, handled by experienced online marketing experts who do online marketing for a living.
(By the way, this is the EXACT same multi-pronged online marketing approach I used to turn my school around after the summer of 2007 when the recession first hit everyone really bad.)
If you’d like to find out more about how you can take advantage of this new leap in local online marketing for small businesses, you’ll want to attend our webinar this Thursday:
Webinar Time: Thursday, Jul 16, 2009 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM CDT
Registration Link: Click here to register and reserve your seat
Please be aware that we expect this webinar to fill up quickly, as this service is brand new and many school owners are going to want to be the first in their areas to take advantage of it. Please register immediately to get a spot in the online conference.
If You’re Decisive And Want To Start Right Away…
If you are already convinced this is something you need to do for your school, please complete the following form to get started immediately.
And, be sure to include your phone number so I can call you to get the details for your local online marketing campaign:
