Below I share the step by step plan I use to grow a martial arts school to the size the school owners wants them to be.  Newer/smaller schools start with a rough draft of each of these steps and then refine and improve as they grow. This means that when I work with school owners I start with the step that will create the biggest change (often for the least amount of work for an quick win). That step is usually step 1.

Step 1: Clarify The Offer

Storybrand and the book "Building a Storybrand" (CLICK HERE to use my affiliate link to get the book) talk about the power of clarity when marketing your business. People also tend not to want to sign up for a never ending membership until they have had a chance to try it.  So, step 1 is to create and clarify your offer.

The core offer should give people an easy and early off ramp to take. They should not feel they would be stuck after the initial purchase because they will not buy if that is the case.  I like using a boot camp/challenge (How I Do This) because they are often easier to sell, even though they can be harder to convert to full students without a good plan. The tried and true free/paid trials also work and are easier to convert into full students while being a little harder to sell.

Once you know what your offer is, you need to clarify how you talk about it. The questions you need to answer are:

• • What is the problem your are solving for your students? (bullying, focus, respect, self defense?)
  • What is the core of your offer? (how long, how many classes, what do they actually get?)
  • What bonuses will you provide? (these tackle the smaller problems that come up when your students take on the larger problem)
  • What makes your offer different? (better isn't enough you have to be different)

I guide my clients through this process so they can have an easier path to an offer that speaks to their customers.

Step 2: Plan The Conversion

You will need to know how you will take someone from seeing an ad to becoming a student. This will become your marketing funnel. Usually this goes something like this:

Sees an ad, Goes to website, Schedules a call, Comes to school for first session, Buys into boot camp, Comes to more classes, Has half-way check-in meeting, Converts to student, Finishes boot camp, Gives testimonial and refers friends

Each of these is a place where some people won't move on but you can have a plan to maximize the number of people who complete each step. If you try to let it happen naturally you will lose out on opportunities but if you try to force it you leave a bad taste in people's mouths. Find the happy middle.

Think about how many people have scheduled that first visit and then never came? Imagine if you followed up with an email as soon as they scheduled telling them what to expect and answered some of the normal questions. Then, you sent them a text the day before letting them know you are excited to have them and sharing again what to wear and what to bring. Finally, an hour or two before they are supposed to show up they get a short video of the person who will be working with them giving them land marks to look for when they arrive and how to find them.

Having a plan similar to the example above for each step will maximize your conversions and blow you students away because of how much you are looking out for them. I often help my clients fine tune these plans so they get them most out of each lead.

Step 3: Create The Landing Page

This is the page you are sending people to. If you are like many, you will want to talk about all the options they have on here but resist the urge. Only sell the one thing (your boot camp/challenge or the trial) or you will confuse your message. There can be multiple tiers of the offer but you definitely shouldn't be talking about your kids BJJ boot camp and your karate free trial on the same page.

To create the landing page you need the words you are going to use for three to seven sections. I don't have time to go through all of them in depth, but I suggest this order:

• • Header: What is it? Anti-Bullying Boot Camp, How do they buy it? Schedule A Call, What they get? Your child can have the confidence and skill to stand up for themselves )
  • Agitate the Problem: The easiest way is usually to ask three to eight questions that your potential students would identify with. Is your child afraid to go to school? Do they lack confidence or hide behind you a lot? Are you worried about them when you're not around?
  • Provide the Solution: Position your boot camp, challenge, or trial, as how they will correct the problem.  The children that go through our Anti-Bullying Boot Camp feel confident because of ....
  • 3 Step Plan: Give your potential new students a short plan for getting started with you. 1. Complete the form 2. Come to 2 classes/week 3. Watch you child blossom
  • Give more Detail: Answer the questions people will have. How much? How Long? Will they get hurt? ...
  • Give a Guarantee: The better your guarantee the more people you will convert and the more you can charge. Your child will stop being bullied or we will write you a check for 120% of what you paid.
  • Offer A Free Gift: Something that you offer for free that people would spend $10-$30 for. The more value you offer in your free gift the more value people will see in your boot camp, challenge, or trial. 5 Tips To Stand Up To The Bully or A step by step guide to building confidence at home.

Step 4: Create The Ads

Good ads are tested because it is almost impossible to know what will work. To create an ad you need multiple options for each piece. The pieces include Media, Header, Description, and Call To Action.

Media is the pictures or videos that you pair with your ads. They tend to work best if they are dynamic and show people happy while or after using the product. Not every platform allows media but when it is available it should help the header grab attention.

The header is how you will grab attention so it should be short and create curiosity for your target audience. If your header doesn't make them curious they will move on quickly.

In the description you can have more words and share more about your offer. These often work best if you start by describing the problem you customers are facing and then set your offer up as the solution to that problem.

Finally, the call to action is how you tell your potential students how to get what you offer. Be direct and tell them what to do. Don't be cute or vague. They should Schedule a Call, they should not Learn More.

You should expect to have to reach a large amount of people if you are going to find out what works. You also need to only change one thing at a time while testing, by changing multiple things at once you make it impossible to know what made the difference.

Step 5: Get Feedback and Testimonials

You need to get better and offer proof to potential students that you have gotten results for someone else recently. You could do what most schools do and wait for people to remember that this is an option on their own or you can remember that people are busy and ask them. You have provided them an amazing service that they want to tell people about. They just need to be reminded how to do it.

I like to set up a meeting with people at the end of their boot camp, challenge, or trial, where I get all the feedback I need to make the program better.

What challenges did they face as they went through the program? Did we do a good job of helping them overcome those challenges? If they had to add one thing to the program, what would it be? Was there anything we offered that they think took away from their experience?

I also suggest asking them and possibly rewarding them to leave a review on google, facebook, and/or yelp. You can't only reward the five star reviews, but the lower stars will help make you feel more real anyway. Besides, after going through the program and answering the questions above they will know how much you care and reward you for it.

I help my clients create this in a way that works best for them, but you can definitely think through and refine it on your own if you prioritize the process.

Step 6: Offer An Upsell

Statistics show that about 10% of the people who are buying from you would pay more for a higher tier product, so you should offer one.  This product needs to be worth the money, but people will want it.

The easiest upsell for martial arts schools, in my experience, is a small group offering. Do you often have 15 or more students in class? Then some of them would pay two-three times as much to be in a class of 4 at most. If you don't offer this, those people can't pay more for it.

Step 7: Automate What You Can

This step is where you make the rest of the steps as easy as possible for you and your staff. If you give too much over to the computers, you will lose some of the personality but it will free you and your teachers up to do other things. Automate what you can, systematize everything else, and never stop trying to improve the process.

After you have gone through all of the steps, you start back at the top and either do more of what is working because it is working or you improve what your doing so you convert more of the leads you are creating. These steps are mostly focused on gaining new students because this is where most schools I work with need the most help, but I also work on improving retention, increasing profit, and maximizing training space with my clients.