Being Growth Professionals, one thing we know is important to get right: Opening a Martial Arts School.
We all know a bad start, although not always a permanent detriment, can really mess up how successful your business can be or how fast you get there.
According to Fundera, “75% of small business owners think that internet marketing is very effective or effective for attracting new customers.” And it is no surprise.
Online Marketing has skyrocketed every business’s potential, big or small.
So with our marketing ninja skills, the growth experts are breaking down the most important factors for opening a martial arts school.
Whether you are opening your school’s second location (from all that growth) or you’re starting from scratch, here are our top 7 Marketing Musts for Opening a Martial Arts School.
1. Identify your Avatar and Location
Before initiating any marketing campaign, there is an important preliminary step that is often forgotten: Market Research: Identifying your Ideal Customer.
While you don’t have to be a data analyst or statistical mastermind, it is incredibly important to fundamentally understand your AVATAR.
For more information watch this video of MAIA Wealth consultant, Frank Silverman, sharing the 5 most important things to look for when opening up a martial arts school.
Business is Business – 5 Things to Look for When Opening a Martial Arts School – YouTube
2. Build A Brand
Okay, so you have a location, a name, and a logo picked out and ready to go.
First, make sure that you claim handles for your school’s brand if you haven’t already. This means usernames on all of the big platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Business Profile, and Twitter (if you plan on using it). You are going to want to do this as soon as you can when opening a Martial Arts School because it’s a great way to build awareness.
Once your name is secure it’ll be time to deep dive into your brand.
You might be thinking “But I have a name and logo. What more branding do I need????”
But Branding goes way further than that when it comes to opening your martial arts school. Branding is an essential part of starting your school because some of the concepts will carry throughout your business as you grow.
Here are a few questions you are going to want to ask yourself when opening your martial arts school:
What are your branding colors and what do they mean or represent?
Sure, picking colors is easy, but why are you picking the colors? The most popular colors amongst our martial arts school clients are Blue and Red. According to Hubspot, Blue envokes Loyalty, Dependability, and Socialness while Red invokes passion, Power, boldness, and energy.
Even if you have colors already picked out, think about how you can use color psychology to represent your school in your marketing.
What is your tagline?
Having a tagline can help your community join under a unified message. It is also good because it can become an easy hashtag to use. For example, Gracie PAC MMA’s tagline is “Hard Work Pays Off”. They use this in a lot of their social media posts, merchandise, and overall marketing.
What tone does your brand have?
What tone do you want to represent your brand?
Do you want to be funny and laid back?
Is your brand Powerful and serious?
Want to come across as family-friendly and happy?
Choosing a tone can help your branding become stronger and set expectations for a prospect’s experience at your school.
3. Grow Your List
Email marketing is one of the oldest and most popular online marketing techniques in the world and it can help you when you’re opening your martial arts school.
Some reasons for building an email list are:
- Email can be made personal
- Email helps you build rapport and intimate relationships
- Email helps to bring your customers (and potential customers) value
- Email is targeted – you can send specific messages to certain groups
So as you can see, before opening your martial arts school, building your list can get you ahead of the game. By growing your list, you can get leads lined up and ready to follow up with for booked appointments when you open your martial arts school.
4. Build Awareness
An easy way to get started is to start posting on those Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Business Profile, and Twitter (if you plan on using it) accounts we told you about earlier.
Things like Strong Branding, Optimizing your SEO, and Organic Social Media Management are 3 of many impactful ways you can build awareness that will help make Opening a Martial Arts School a success.
We aren’t going to go in-depth on this point since we have other blogs that deep dive into ways to build Awareness for your brand like The Keys to Establishing Your Personal Brand, 4 Reasons Dominating Google Will Make You The Go-To Dojo, 7 Free Ways to Reach Your Audience Online, and Organic vs Paid Marketing.
5. Set Yourself Up For Success
There are a lot of factors that go into opening a Martial Arts School. We have covered a lot of tips on how to get your Marketing in order. That being said, the best marketing is having a good product and service.
If your service isn’t good, all the marketing in the world can’t do a thing to help you.
So we compiled a list of 3 important questions that will help you deliver a good service that goes in tandem with the marketing tips we have given so far.
Do you have the class schedules needed for any incoming clients?
A common problem we see with new schools when they start with us at Grow Pro Agency is that they get a massive influx of leads that they aren’t ready for. After only a month or 2, they will tell us they need to stop services because we got them too many leads and their classes are full.
At this point, we usually refer them to MAIA foundations, since in most cases that is a scheduling issue. If your classes aren’t optimized to take the students you need then you could be turning away paying customers who want you to impact their lives with martial arts.
Can you handle an influx of leads?
Similar to the problem above, if you don’t have the time or staff to handle an influx of students, then you could be turning away students. In this case, if you can’t follow up with the leads coming in (thanks to all of our marketing tips) then it will all be for not.
Lead follow-up can make or break you when you are opening your martial arts school. Read more on this in our latest blog.
This is going to be super important for you while opening your martial arts school.
Do you have the staff to maintain the level of customer service you want for your clients as you scale?
Okay, say you got the other 2 questions down pact. That’s awesome!… but can you maintain relationships with all of your new students?
As school owners, we are inclined to always look to get more students (which is valid).
However, the most successful schools also focus on the retention of current students. If you are losing students, then gaining new ones means your school is only staying static as opposed to growing.
Make sure that, when opening your martial arts school, you aren’t focused on just the new students, but the ones you have as well.
6. Don’t Stop
Digital Marketing can produce results fast, but the best results are built up over time.
Don’t forget that the compound effect is a very real thing and that, as Darren Hardy says, “Small, smart choices, done consistently over time yield drastic results.”
Do. Not. Stop.
Keep going and use as many marketing avenues as possible.
7. Get Help
Listen, we know you don’t want to start opening your martial arts school so that you can spend time learning digital marketing.
This can be overwhelming if you’re doing it all yourself.
That’s why the growth professionals are here!
We’re trusted by 280+ Martial Arts Academies, Martial Arts Instructors, and Martial Arts Entrepreneurs nationwide.
Our goal is to take over the technical and strategic aspects of your Digital Marketing…
We offer Digital Advertising services and Social Media Management that will help free up more of your time so you can focus on doing what you love – martial arts!
We would love to help you grow while you are opening your school and beyond.
Consider Grow Pro Agency your #PartnersInMarketing.
You can schedule a FREE Marketing Audit with our team where we’ll access your online presence and offer insight to help you overcome obstacles that could be hindering you from accomplishing your goals.
