Creating Effective Martial Arts Marketing

How to Get the Best Results From Your Marketing

I hear this all the time from school owners. “I tried (insert marketing approach here) and it didn’t work.”

Now, I’ve written about this at length in other articles, so I’m not going to rehash what I’ve said before about testing and tweaking your marketing until you strike gold.

But, what I am going to cover are the overarching principles of crafting good advertisement and marketing for your school.

These are universal principles that govern the skill of writing good ad copy, and they will serve you in good stead if you follow them when creating your ads and other marketing pieces.

Of course, you have to actually be marketing consistently for these principles to work. Remember what I said a few weeks ago about “done” being better than “perfect”? Get your marketing out the door first, then worry about fine-tuning it as time goes on.

Now, let’s get into the most important principles that you can apply right now to improve your marketing.

Know Your Audience

I’ve told you this many times before. However, it bears repeating since marketing to the wrong audience is perhaps the most common mistake small business owners make in getting the word out about their products and services.

Yet, another common mistake is marketing to the right audience but with the wrong message. That’s why you have to not only identify your target audience, but also you must know them well in order to make your marketing count.

So ask yourself the following about your audience before you even begin to put pen to paper in writing an ad:

• What does my ideal client look like?
• How old are they?
• Where do they live? Work? Play?
• What are they passionate about?
• What are their secret fears? Desires? Turnoffs?

By answering these and other questions about your target audience, you can better tailor each ad to suit that audience specifically. This will boost your ad response rates across the board once you get the hang of it.

Tune Into WIIFM…

You’ve probably heard this before, but the most important question that your sales copy should answer for your customer is:

• “What’s in it for me?”

Your every word in each and every ad should be absolutely focused on answering this question for your customer. This is what is known as “benefits-focused” or “benefits-driven” sales copy, and it’s vital to the success of any ad.

Think about how many martial art school ads you’ve seen that are all about how great the instructor is; now think about how quickly you tune that stuff out. See what I’m saying? People don’t care about how great you are, what your rank is, how many trophies you’ve won; all they care about is whether you can help them get what they want.

So, write from the perspective of the potential student who is wondering how taking classes at your studio will benefit them and help them reach their goals. Explain this in an exciting and engaging manner, and you will have written winning sales copy.

Write Conversationally

Whenever I write an ad, martial arts website, sales letter, or other marketing piece for a new client, I can always count on the fact that there will be someone close to them who thinks their job is to correct my grammar.

What these well-intentioned people fail to realize is that effective marketing copy often breaks all the rules of good grammar. That’s because marketing copy that’s written in a familiar and colloquial style hits harder and converts better.

So, forget Strunk and White for a short while, and write like you speak when you’re crafting sales copy. By doing so, you’ll find that you are able to connect with the customer and that your message will be more likely to hit home with them.

Where to Get More Help

If you want to know more about how to market your martial art school, check out my ebook, Direct Response Marketing for Martial Art Schools.

I’m also a big fan of anything by Bob Bly on copywriting. I find his material much more accessible and practical than that written by other copywriting experts. His Copywriter’s Handbook is a good introduction to his style of writing marketing copy.

And remember, I want to hear from you! So, be sure to post your questions about marketing your school below.