I used to be a graphic designer for a small newspaper. My job was building ads for clients and putting the newspaper together. My folks have also run their own small business for over 20 years. So, I know a little something about small business marketing.
In my opinion, the biggest mistake that martial arts places make in their marketing is the actual explanation of what they are selling to potential buyers. It is not that they don’t have enough people walking in their doors looking for instruction. Instead, their problem to me is that they only get a small portion of their walk in’s as actual students. Basically they have a high failure rate of closing the deal, not getting them in the door. Why?
I think the biggest reason for this is lack of explanation about what they are offering to students. The old sales set up goes like this
Feature
Advantage
Benefit
Repeat
Feature
Advantage
Benefit
Close the sale
Every sale should follow this. Poor salesmanship is basically the problem, but it goes further than that. When someone comes into your dojo or academy you should all ready have the materials ready to show them, not just what you are teaching, but also the advantage of taking classes with you over overs, and the what the student will actually benefit in return.
This is what I have heard from a martial arts instructor before.
Me: So what exactly do you teach here?
MA Instructor: It’s a mixture of a lot of different things. It’s a little karate and then some judo and grappling.
Me: ok...
MAI: You can stay around and watch a class if you want.
ME: ok...thanks
(Then the MAI leaves and goes back to his other students and I am supposed to just automatically understand “why” I should give this guy some money to teach me what he is selling.)
Sorry fellas, the world just doesn’t work that way. You are supposedly running your own business, but you don’t learn the first darn thing about salesmanship and the marketing of your product. Martial Arts Instructors think that a new person entering their dojo is only looking at whether or not the guy teaching it is personable, knowledgeable, and or friendly. Wrong! People who enter your dojo are not in that kind of mind set usually. Instead, they are thinking that they are buying a product. And sadly, they do not think of the instructor as the product they are buying. They think of the “art” that the instructor is teaching as what they are actually buying. Their mind set is more in line with product purchasing than college shopping. They are not buying you, they are buying what your selling.
They don’t automatically think of your dojo as the “best college” around. Instead, they are product shopping and they are trying to understand your “product”. They don’t know what you are selling and they have little to no background to understand why they should learn it all, let alone from you. What they want most often is “self defense” and they want to know how your art can provide that specifically.
You should actually ask your potential students, “Why do you want to learn martial arts?” Then, you should tailor your speech to address their concerns with “feature, advantage, benefit” as it relates to their concern.
If you were selling cars then you would learn about each feature of the cars and then be able to relate those features to address a customers concerns. You would find the right car for the client. But in Martial Arts, few people take the time to go through this sales presentation set up. You need to explain to people the basic features of your art and then how they relate to an actual benefit in self defense, if that’s what the person is looking for.
Basically, if ten people walk in your door, and you only get one of them to be your student, then your biggest problem isn’t marketing, it’s salesmanship. When you start closing the deal on two or three of those ten, then you are on to something.
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In God We Trust
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