Are You a “Raging Thunder Lizard” Evangelist for Your School?

It fascinates me how many martial artists live for their art yet turn bashful about sharing its value with others. Hopefully that’s not you. If what you do has a genuinely life-changing impact on your students, don’t you owe it to your whole community to show them — convincingly — what you teach and why it matters? You need to become a raging thunder lizard evangelist for the value of martial arts.

Marketing Is Just Communication

Strip away the jargon and marketing is simply communication with the people in your community. You can pay for it (advertising) or earn it for free (publicity). You can reach large groups at once by speaking to schools, day cares, and churches, or reach people one at a time by phone and door to door. But none of it works unless you have a great product and you and your staff are true believers, passionate about sharing your program with everyone willing to listen.

Jae Jo testimonial for Stephen Oliver's Martial Arts Wealth Mastery

So how do you convince your community that training at your school is genuinely valuable? Six rules.

Rule 1: Long-Form Beats Short-Form

More communication beats less. A one-hour live presentation beats a 30-second one. A 30-minute TV segment beats a 30-second spot. A 20-page letter with a DVD beats a postcard. A series of school presentations beats a single visit. The more you can convey — and the longer you keep your audience engaged — the more opportunity you have to make your case.

Rule 2: In-Person Beats Broadcast

Live communication always trumps broadcast. A prospect talking to you in person beats them visiting your website. Your phone call beats your email. A real conversation beats a robocall every single time.

Rule 3: Participation Beats Demonstration

Getting prospects to participate always beats letting them merely spectate. Compare a mall demo performed for several hundred onlookers with a class taught to 20 or 30 people at center court — the class wins every time, because participation moves people toward ongoing enrollment.

Rule 4: Capture Contact Info and Follow Up

A prospect who isn’t interested today may be very interested next month, next quarter, or next year. Always collect contact information from spectators, participants, and interested parties — then follow up constantly and repetitiously. Email your list weekly or daily, mail them monthly, call them quarterly, and invite them to events. Without contact information, you’ll enroll only a tiny fraction of the people you could.

Rule 5: Farm Your Community

Your community is always changing — people marry, divorce, move, have kids, and cycle through seasons of boredom, overwhelm, and life-changing events that push them toward (or away from) new activities. You must be in front of as many people as possible, as often as possible, placing your message in front of them when they’re finally receptive. That means generating leads, mailing, and calling continuously, and returning again and again to the same community.

Rule 6: Do Enough Stuff

For many schools, growth really is as simple as “do more stuff.” Most owners badly underestimate the effort it takes to enroll a new student. If you’re enrolling 5 a month and need 20, the answer may be to do four times as much — in time, energy, or spending. There’s no magic pill. Sometimes you simply aren’t doing enough stuff to get the results you want.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the most effective form of martial arts school marketing?

In-person, participation-based communication with as much depth as possible — a class beats a demo, a call beats an email, and a long presentation beats a short one. The closer and more engaging the contact, the better it converts.

Scott Sullivan testimonial for Stephen Oliver's Martial Arts Wealth Mastery

How many times should I follow up with a prospect?

Far more than most owners think — people often need to see your message seven to nine times before they act. Email weekly, mail monthly, and call quarterly or more, indefinitely, until they enroll or opt out.

Why isn’t my marketing producing enough students?

Often you simply aren’t doing enough. If you need four times the results, you may need roughly four times the activity. Most owners underestimate the effort required to consistently enroll new students.

Ready to Add 100 Students to Your School?

Become the evangelist your community needs — with a proven plan: get your free copy of Six Simple Steps to Add 100 New Students to Your School at SimpleSteps.com.

And to deliver a program truly worth evangelizing, study Extraordinary Teaching at ExtraordinaryTeaching.com.

Stephen Oliver, MBA, is a 10th Degree Black Belt, the founder of Mile High Karate and Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, and is known industry-wide as “The Millionaire Maker.”