Any product© a stereo, an automobile, or martial arts instruction, stands
little chance of success unless two things happen© the potential customer knows about you
and your product, and more importantly, they take action© they buy the product.
This section will offer you several suggestions for teaching the public who you
are, what you offer, and how to persuade them to try your school. The important thing to
remember is that we offer only guidelines, suggestions to help in your owning planning.
All marketing techniques available are the result of someone's innovative and
imaginative thinking, so don't limit yourself to the suggestions made here. Use the book
as a springboard to create and be original. Creative and originality in any business will
make you the one remembered.
There are several broad categories from which to market the martial arts school. We
will include the presentation of possibilities in such areas as print advertising,
brochures, flyers, business cards, television, theaters, magazines listings, yellow pages,
word of mouth, college and high school teaching, community involvement, visitors, and
demonstrations. From these you will see other possibilities in your own circumstances.
MARKETING BASICS
Regardless of the business, there are some basic marketing principles. You should at
least be familiar with them and also learn to think of new methods. As we mentioned
in earlier chapters, you must concern yourself with price, product, place (in the market)
and promotion. You should have already learned a great deal about who your market is by
researching the early questions. Now you must be concerned with translating the
information into an attempt to attract new students from your target market.
Advertising for the martial arts or any other market depends on who you are trying to
reach. The martial arts as a business contains elements which work well for advertising,
but some people have a certain unexplained uneasiness about karate and the other arts. One
way to help them overcome this fear is to employ familiar marketing techniques that a
potential customer is already familiar with, as opposed to something unfamiliar like
demonstrations of brick©breaking. Consider this example:
A couple has been thinking of enrolling their child in a martial arts class, but have
not yet made a decision about it. One night a knock at the door brings a student from the
ABC school of martial arts whose instructor is trying a new method of building enrollment.
He sends his students door-to-door giving martial arts demonstrations. (This was actually
done in the past.) The student/salesman the proceeds quite sincerely to show the couple
how many weapons can be found on the human anatomy. The parents are naturally
uncomfortable with this approach, ask the person to leave, and dismiss the the thought of
lessons for little Joey.
Now consider this example:
The same couple is sitting at home, discussing the day's events. The conversation
briefly passes over the fact that a friend's child has started martial arts lessons and
truly enjoys the new activity. Later in the evening, father is reading the sport's section
of the newspaper and sees a large ad for the XYZ school of karate. The ad includes a large
picture of the instructor working in class with several children, all apparently enjoying
the lessons. The parents decide to check out the school, mostly based on the picture.
The two examples are no doubt extreme, but the point is still intact. Marketing the
martial arts can be tricky. You must overcome a large degree of stereotyping. The second
example was meant to illustrate one means of doing this. People tend to associate
credibility with quality advertising. The better the quality of your promotions and
marketing attempts, the better your chances of successfully attracting new students.
The following sections will explore some areas of advertising that seem to work best
for the martial arts.
Print Advertising
Under this heading we want to include newspaper and magazine ads, brochures, flyers,
and other similar ideas. Most people by now have seen the martial arts in one form or
another. Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and other martial arts stars have helped. Every major
television network has featured the martial arts in different prime-time shows. The
problem with advertising the martial arts then, is not to make people learn that something
exists called the martial arts, but to make them understand two things: you teach martial
arts and that they should come to your school and try it.
You must convey a small amount of information in your ads about your experience,
reputation, and qualifications. Concentrate on the benefits for the student. The school
information: location, phone number, class schedule, and school name must appear. Your
second task in print ads is to convince the potential student to come to the school and
try the class. To do this, you must overcome any stereotypes you think the person may have
as well as trying to relax any hesitation he may have of starting. You must convince the
target audience that they can and should be training in the martial arts at your school.
Your ads must be tailored to the particular group you are trying to reach.
Consider the following example:
Suppose you open a school in an area that is mostly made up of people ages 25-45, who
are blue and white collar workers with medium range incomes. The majority would take
classes at night, and most will have worked during the day. They will want classes
designed to help them relax as well as stay in good physical condition as well as the
other benefits of martial arts training. You now have a good idea of what the ads intended
for this group should emphasize. A mistake would be to advertise something like
"...Olympic and tournament training". A 25-45 year old working person has
trouble relating to why they should enter into Olympic/tournament training.
Your advertising must be written so that the group of potential students you have
identified can relate to and react from the ad. This holds for any form of advertising.
Print advertising is well-suited for the martial arts because it gives you a chance to
combine action pictures with ideas met to convince the person that he or she is capable of
what the pictures depict.
Flyers and Brochures
Both provide a means for you to explain in more detail the kinds of services and
benefits you offer. Brochures and flyers give those who are hesitant some thing, some
piece of information which they can carry home and think about. It is to your advantage
then to have quality brochures with text and pictures.
If you know someone who is good at writing, artwork, or photography, then try to talk
them in helping you prepare the brochure. Remember to strive for the highest quality
possible.
Your flyers and brochures must do the following:
*stress the benefits of training in the martial arts, and more specifically, at your
school.
*give relevant information about your qualifications to teach, i.e. training history,
instructor's name, tournament or other achievements, and all other information that is
pertinent.
*If you use photography, make them action pictures. Try to keep the brochure
informative and exciting, but keep in mind that the student must be able to relate to it.
* List all necessary information for finding you and your classes. Use the address,
directions to your location, telephone numbers, and office/class schedules.
Magazine Advertisements
A relatively new development that has potential for the martial arts instructor is the
city magazine. Most major cities have something similar to New York Magazine, Cincinnati,
or Boston Monthly. If your target market reads such magazines, you may want to consider
advertising in them. However, a note of caution. For the new school, the rates of
advertising in these magazines is very high. The money would probably be better spent in
other ways, but the final decision is yours. Don't get caught in the trap of advertising
in inappropriate places simply to see your name in print.
Word of Mouth
The library contains reams of material describing in detail how major corporations
spend millions of dollars developing loyalty by customers for a certain brand of product.
The tactics seem endless and the extreme lengths used to engrave product names in a
customer's mind seem almost dangerous and immoral.
There is an important lesson among the stories that any person should learn and use.
The corporations try to artificially manufacture a reputation for their products because
they know that it is word of mouth that truly sells most products. You must earn a
reputation on your own, one that is honest and deserved so that word of mouth is effective
and enduring. Before these admonitions sound too righteous, we should examine exactly what
we are discussing.
We will assume that you have several students in your new school. Your other methods of
advertising have worked to a degree, but what now? Part of the answer lies with the
students already there. If your teaching is of good quality, if you excite their interest,
and offer all the other hallmarks of good teaching, the students will tell their families
and friends and word will soon get around. You will also find that you must employ as many
means of advertising and promotion as you can, but it will still be word of mouth that
creates your reputation. A
good reputation has the potential to attract new students, but always remember the
opposite nothing will drive away potential students faster than a bad reputation.
You can use the same principles as the giant companies. Get your name before the
public, within the guidelines of quality, making sure that all associations made with your
name are positive. When a potential student decides to try martial arts training, you want
your school to come to mind.
Community Involvement
You will observe that many businesses are involved in community activities. Some feel
that it is merely good business to become involved, while others sense an obligation to
help the people that help them stay in business. In either case, you will sooner or later
be asked to help in some sort of community activity, especially charity functions. You
should strongly consider these requests if time permits.
You are a new and growing business, one that needs introduced to and support from other
people in the community. The other business people who are involved in various civic
affairs offer a potential wealth of experience from which to seek good business advice.
Let them find out what kind of person you are, instead of making them guess about
"that new guy in the chopªsocky school down the street".
Granted these are all reasons which seem more of an advantage to you then to the
community, but it is the spirit of cooperation that will make the community prosper. If
you are a member of that community, and expect them to help you by becoming students, you
will find that you must work that much harder to help them back.
An action that comes straight from martial arts philosophy.
High School and College Teaching
You will find another excellent possibility for promoting your school by teaching short
length (one day, one week, etc.) classes in the physical education departments of local
schools. The idea is to arouse their interest to investigate other classes.
Remember that in all the methods and possibilities of advertising and promotion, the
key point is to get the potential student to try your school. If you actually have them
involved in the training, so much the better. you give them the chance to actively
consider the idea and become familiar with the product.
Visitors
The visitor to your school offers an interesting situation: he or she has made the
effort, for whatever reason, to inquire about the school. You must now balance yourself
between selling them on the school and not scaring them away from overeagerness on your
part. There are several possible solutions to this:
*Have brochures handy for the visitor. Make sure that they have something from the
school when leaving.
*If you have an assistant instructor, ask the visitor if they would like to try a
short, private lesson. Offer nothing fancy, maybe just a simple self-defense technique.
Again, the point is to get them involved.
*Allow them to watch the class, if possible.
*Consider some type of premium to have them return. A free uniform, or a free trial
period of instruction, for example.
*Encourage the visitor to talk with other students and to ask questions.
*No matter what, be courteous. Remember you are developing a reputation. Even a visitor
is a source of word of mouth advertising.
Demonstrations
Anything used to illustrate the actual nature of the martial arts brings the potential
student closer to being an actual enrolled student. Demonstrations are excellent for this
purpose, but they must be well organized. Try any potential source of students: boy
and girl scout troops, youth organizations, garden clubs, lions clubs, booster clubs,
senior citizen groups, business associations or any other suitable audience.
