Seasonal Mailers are Key to Surviving Down Periods

Direct mail marketing should always be a part of your overall marketing plan for your Martial Arts school. Even when business is good and every class is full, sending out seasonal mailers through snail mail will give you an edge when the slow season does hit.

During your Martial Art schools down periods, generating business is a must. Without business, well, chances are that you won’t survive financially. Fortunately, seasonal mailers have been shown time and time again to generate traffic and provide business even when times are tough.

Below are a few of the most important reasons why all owners of Martial Arts schools need to invest in seasonal mailers along with a discussion on how you can use this unique marketing tool to its fullest effect.

Why You Need to Engage in Direct Mail Marketing for Your Martial Arts School

Every Martial Arts school can benefit from a well-planned and dynamic direct mail marketing campaign. Sending seasonal mailers detailing your services or special rates is a surefire way to grab the attention of potential customers.

Investing in high-quality seasonal mailers, like those offered by printingdojo.com, the original source of marketing materials for Martials Arts schools, allows your business to:

• Talk directly to customers/students about your Martial Arts school and services.
• Experiment with new customer markets, test new services/classes, and collect customer information that can be analyzed for future marketing campaigns.
• Save money, as direct mailers are one of the most cost-effective forms of print marketing.
• Build personal connections and relationships with new/current students and produce faster sales.
• Receive direct feedback, both from customers themselves and from your mailer’s results, that will help you improve your current and future marketing strategies.

Direct mailers work well particularly because they are so upfront and personal. When a potential customer opens their mailbox, there is a direct mailer from your Martial Arts school staring them right in the face.

Being able to handle a piece of mail from your business in their hands puts your school in the forefront of their mind. An eye-catching and professionally-designed mailer from The Printing Dojo further increases the odds that you will hear from the people you send your mailers to.

Tips for Sending an Effective Seasonal Mailer

Like all else in marketing, it pays off big time not to go about sending a seasonal mailer in a slapdash fashion. You want a well thought out direct mail marketing campaign if you hope to get the best results possible.

A few of the top tips that will help you make your seasonal mailer a success include:

• Form a List – The key to marketing success is knowing who your audience is. If you have been in the business for a while, there is a good chance you have several current and past students you can send your mailers to. Tailoring your list to the people that are actually interested in Martial Arts will greatly improve the success of your campaign.
• Add Value – Sending an informational mailer about your Martial Arts school can be effective but you will find much better results if you add value as well. The key to creating action in your audience is offering a sale, special offer, discount, or bonus for lessons at your school. Direct mailers are meant to make your customer base act now – so give them a reason to seek out Martial Arts lessons during your slow season.
• Look Great – If your mailer looks like junk, it is going to be treated as junk. Minimize the risk of having your mailer thrown out by ensuring that it has a great design. The Printing Dojo has long been the leader in creating stunning professional marketing materials for Martial Arts schools. The credibility and professional quality of their designs will set your mailer apart from other promotional materials arriving in your customer’s mailboxes.
• Include Effective Copy – You need the copy, meaning the actual text, on your mailer to encourage your audience to act. In addition to promoting a special offer, your seasonal mailer needs to say what is so great about your Martial Arts school. Why should a person interested in learning Martial Arts choose it instead of another? Fortunately, The Printing Dojo offers several customizable templates that make writing effective copy easy. While each can be customized, they all do a great job at promoting special seasonal offers themselves.
• Step Into the Customer’s Shoes – Before you follow through with a direct mail marketing campaign, you need to take a step back and look at your mailer. Is it eye-catching? Is the offer strong enough to incite you to act? Does it look credible? If your mailer doesn’t make you want to join your own Martial Arts school, why would it make anyone else want to do so?
• Follow Up – If you really want to hit a home run with your direct mailer for your Martial Arts school, follow up with an additional mailer. Sure, it might cost a little extra money, but sending two different mailers can show a potential customer that you care and that you really want them to consider your school. If you really want to go above and beyond, you can even send a personalized sales letter as a follow up. Or if your campaign is targeting previous students, you might even consider giving them a phone call as long as it is appropriate.

Seasonal Mailers for Your Martial Arts School
Let’s face it: there is no getting around slow periods. Certain times of the year are just a lot slower for Martial Arts schools than others.
While slow periods vary from school to school, especially depending on location, there are a few times of the year that are great to send mailers during. A few of these include before school starts for another year, when school is let out for the summer, around the winter holidays, at Halloween, at Valentine’s Day, and for spring. Customizing your mailer for each season (printingdojo.com offers a number of seasonal templates) will greatly increase your chances of success.

When times are slow, a seasonal mailer might have you covered. They are one of the most effective forms of print marketing for Martial Arts schools. Need business? Check them out!

How to Successfully Run a Back to School Campaign for Your Martial Arts Dojo

The back to school season is one of the best times of the year to run a specifically targeted marketing campaign for your dojo.
As a new school year looms ever closer and the summer comes to a close, many kids, of all ages and grades levels, are looking for extracurricular activities to keep themselves busy. In recent years, there has been an explosion in interest in the area of Martial Arts. People of all ages have shown a strong desire to learn them and with this has come an increase in the number of Martial Arts dojos offering lessons.

With that said, it is essential you set your school apart from the rest by running a successful marketing campaign. By showing off your best side to potential students, you greatly increase the likelihood that they will choose you for their lessons rather than someone else.

While anytime of the year is great to run a marketing campaign, the back to school season is especially important because it can lead well into Halloween, the winter holidays, and the New Year. Generally, students that start to attend Martial Arts schools at the beginning of their academic school years tend to continue their lessons throughout the entirety of the year (and often on into summer).

Below is a discussion on how to best run a back to school campaign for your Martial Arts dojo. Do a great job and you’ll no doubt have a successful year. Slack off and there is a good chance a large portion of your potential business will find somewhere else for their Martial Arts training.

Running a Successful Back to School Marketing Campaign
The back to school season is a particularly hot time for businesses of all types to start running special deals and offering new promotions. Even though your Martial Arts business does not directly relate to school supplies, you’ll find that the same customer spirit of investing in new products will correlate to investing in new activities.

Around the start of a new school year, parents are that much more likely to invest money in activities for their children. At the same time, children generally show more interest in getting involved with new hobbies and in continuing ones they have already started to pursue.

These are just a few of the reasons why the back to school season is so hot for Martial Arts dojos. Here are a few tips on how you can run the best back to school marketing campaign possible:

• Start Planning Early – Too many people wait until the last minute to begin planning seasonal marketing campaigns. It is essential that you start planning early if you want the best results possible for your Martial Arts dojo. Better yet, launch your campaign early. Mid-July should be the latest date that you start advertising your new offers. This will allow you to gain valuable momentum as the summer progresses.
• Provide Value – Advertising for the back to school season will do little to improve business at your dojo if you don’t add value to your offers. This means that you need to include a limited time deal or price reduction for lessons at your Martial Arts school. Reduced rates and deals will capture your audience’s attention, bringing them into your business and hopefully transforming them into long-term customers.
• Keep Things Simple – A simple marketing campaign is the most effective one. Rather than trying to reach every market, invest in a few primary promotional products. For instance, send a “back to school discount” direct mailer to potential customers, update your website, and print new flyers out to post around town.
• Focus on the Long Term – Back to school marketing is all about the long term. Of course, you want to get new students into your dojo as soon as possible, but you also want to make sure they stick with you throughout the entire year. Take the data you receive from your back to school marketing efforts and apply it through the year. Back to school is a great time to learn what your customers are looking for before beginning your holiday season advertising.

Additional Marketing Tips for the Back to School Season

Running a back to school marketing campaign – or any marketing campaign for that matter – is all about connecting with old students as well as bringing in new students.

Simply put, finding new students is much more difficult than encouraging former students to return. And it costs a heck of a lot more money. This is why it is so important to focus on reconnecting with old students in addition to reaching out to potential new students.

A great first step is talking with parents of your current students. Mention that you are looking for new students for the upcoming school year. Parents are great at getting leads on other kids that might be interested in learning Martial Arts from you.

Better yet, establish a referral system. Every time a current student/parent refers a new student, they are rewarded. If you implement such a system (and you definitely should), there is little doubt you will find it to be one of your best sources of income-generating advertising.

Another marketing tip for the back to school season is to call each of your former students on the phone where appropriate. Mention that you are offering a special promotion for all old students. Provide a small discount coupon (alternatively, you can mail this to them) and you are sure to find a few old faces back in your dojo in no time.

Select printingdojo.com for Your Back to School Promotional Needs

Even the best thought out marketing campaign will fall short if you do not invest in high-quality promotional materials.
Fortunately, printingdojo.com has you covered. The Printing Dojo is always the obvious choice for anything regarding Martial Arts printing. We have been creating top-of-the-line marketing and promotional materials for Martial Arts schools for years. In fact, we were the first company to specialize in marketing specifically for Martial Arts dojos. And everyone knows the original is always best.

By investing in the highest-quality promotional materials possible and using the marketing tips discussed above, there is little doubt that your back to school campaign for your Martial Arts dojo will be a success.

4 Ways to Use Plastic Membership Cards to Increase Revenue

The benefits of practicing Martial Arts on a regular basis are numerous. Chief among them are learning discipline and self-defense while strengthening both your body and mind at the same time. Plus, Martial Arts are just plain old fun to learn.

These are only a few of the reasons why there has been such an explosion in interest in Martial Arts, among the young and old alike, as of late. And naturally this explosion in popularity has led to a rise in the number of Martial Arts schools and dojos currently offering classes.

This is both good news and bad news for owners of Martial Arts schools. On one hand, greater interest means a greater chance of increasing your revenue and watching your business grow. On the other hand, more competition from other schools means that you really have to set yourself apart to attract students.

One of the most effective ways to set your Martial Arts school apart from the rest is by using plastic membership cards. The best membership card programs, sometimes known as customer loyalty programs, accomplish several things at once. They benefit you and your business as well as your students.

Here are four of the absolute best ways to use plastic membership cards to expand your Martial Arts business and watch your monthly revenue grow!

1. Attract New Students

One of the most difficult aspects of marketing, for any business, is attracting new customers. Once you have an interested base group of students locked in, marketing is made much easier. But new Martial Arts schools won’t have many loyal students at first and already established Martial Arts schools want to see their student base grow even more.

Enter plastic membership cards. Your customer loyalty program should be focused on attracting new students to your business. How successful you are at this will depend on several factors.

• Value of Program/Rewards – Martial Arts school memberships are most often used to give return students lower rates. A monthly, quarterly, or yearly membership usually requires a lump sum payment upfront but nets students a lower overall rate on admission throughout the course of their practice. Membership cards can also be used to give students lower rates on each visit, sometimes helping earn them rewards (such as a free lesson) the more they use their cards. The better value your membership card provides customers, the more effective your membership program will be.
• Quality of Card – High-quality membership cards are used more often than low-quality cards. High-quality membership cards are attractive, vibrant, and durable. The point here is attracting new customers and to do that you need attractive promotional materials. Not some cheap looking junk. As always, printingdojo.com is the obvious choice for the highest-quality plastic membership cards for Martial Arts schools.
• Interpretation of Data – When you are investing your money in marketing your Martial Arts school, you want to be sure you get as much as possible from your efforts. Part of this is collecting, analyzing, and interpreting marketing data. By analyzing which customers signed up for your Martial Arts membership program and which most frequently use it, you can tailor future marketing efforts to target your most likely customer demographic.

2. Retain Existing Students A Martial Arts plastic membership card will allow your dojo to better retain existing students. The same value of programs/rewards that entice new students to try your school will prompt old students to return.

A plastic membership card and membership program provides a practical reason for students to continue taking lessons at your Martial Arts school. It gives them a reason not to choose another school over yours. 

3. Increase Student Satisfaction

 Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of membership cards for owners of Martial Arts school and dojos is that they allow you to build close, long-term relationships with students and increase their overall satisfaction with your service.

Think about it for a second – who doesn’t like great rates? By offering a membership program with excellent rates and value, you are making students happy. And happy students are much more likely to continue taking lessons from you than students that are disgruntled about your rates and services.

By increasing student satisfaction, you are also building relationships with students. The more time you spend with repeat students, the more likely they will come to see you as their sole Martial Arts instructor.

Furthermore, students that are highly pleased with your Martial Arts school become a special form of marketing in and of themselves. Those that are satisfied with your offerings are much more likely to tell friends and acquaintances good things about your Martial Arts business, hopefully driving even more traffic your way. Word of mouth advertising is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. It just takes some initial marketing – such as a membership program – to kickstart it and ignite a fire of referrals.

4. Increase Student Spending
   Finding new students and retaining old students is only half of the battle. The most effective Martial Arts marketing programs also encourage students to spend more. There are many ways that plastic membership cards promote this. One is that the great rates offered through a membership program encourage students to take more lessons from you. Even if they are receiving each lesson at a slightly discounted rate, the additional lessons will add up to increased revenue, especially in the long term.

Launch a Creative and Polished Membership Program  As you can see, there are several benefits of using plastic membership cards for your Martial Arts school. They will drive traffic to your school by attracting new members, retaining current members, increasing member satisfaction, and increasing their overall spending. Naturally, all of these things benefit your business in one major way: they all greatly increase revenue.

But setting up a membership program is a waste of time if you don’t do it right. And as always, the obvious choice for Martial Arts printing is printingdojo.com, the original provider of creative marketing materials for Martial Arts schools. The Printing Dojo gives you several different plastic membership cards to choose from and customize so that your membership marketing campaign gets off to a great start. Don’t waste your time – choose The Printing Dojo from the get-go, the number one source of Martial Arts marketing materials online.

3 Martial Arts Promotional Products That Actually Work!

A major part of building up your Martial Arts school into a thriving business is investing in great promotional products. Having a handful of solid promotional products in your arsenal is key to implanting an effective marketing campaign. But the sheer number of promotional products you can choose from can be overwhelming. You obviously can’t select them all (unless your school is doing really well). And nearly everyone you talk to will give you different advice on which are the best.

Here at printingdojo.com, we know exactly what we are talking about when it comes to marketing that is specifically tailored to Martial Arts schools and dojos. We were the first company to ever specialize in creating marketing materials solely for Martial Arts schools. And while other businesses have popped up that do the same thing, there can only be one original. There can only be one Printing Dojo.

And with that, here are three promotional products that will actually work for your Martial Arts school. Each product has been tried and tested over the years and can be easily found and customized on our website.

Direct Mailers

It is hard to argue about the effectiveness of direct mailers. Simply put, they have been shown time and time again to be one of the absolute best ways to advertise any business. Better yet, not only do they spread the word about your business – they actually cause customers to act. And that translates into increased revenue for you. Including direct mail as part of your marketing campaign is so successful because it actually gets your Martial Arts school’s name in front of potential students. When a student checks their mailbox, they will see your school’s name right in front of their eyes. When you include an offer of great value (say a limited time discount at your school), you further encourage them to act.

The easiest way to find a direct mailer for your Martial Arts school is to head on over to printingdojo.com. In addition to making the process easier (The Printing Dojo can actually design, print, and mail your mailer – all you have to do is give your approval of the design work), we also produce the highest-quality mailers around.

We’ve been in this business for a long time and we know what it takes to create an eye-catching direct mailer that will get your Martial Arts school the attention it deserves.

Flyers and Brochures

Another Martial Arts promotional tool that actually works are flyers and brochures. Although they are slightly different from each other, they are similar enough that we decided to include them as a single product.

Brochures and flyers are a great marketing tool because they build brand awareness. Unlike direct mail, they do not go directly to an individual person. Instead, they are placed somewhere that many different people can see them or pick them up. This has both its advantages and disadvantages.

Flyers are advantageous because a single one will get in front of many people at once. Because more people see them, more people are informed about your school. Brochures are the same way. More people see them. Additionally, they can contain much more specific information on your school than a mailer can.

The disadvantages of both come from the fact that they have to be created to engage a wider group of people. You have little idea who will see a flyer or a brochure so you can’t tailor them to a specific demographic. Luckily, the advantages of using flyers and brochures as promotional products greatly outweigh the disadvantages, especially when you use them alongside direct mail.

Once again, the obvious choice for flyers and brochures for your Martial Arts school is printingdojo.com. Our experience and expertise allow us to create the most professional looking flyers and brochures possible. Our expert designers will hand-create unique and original artwork for you that ships in as little as 24 hours.

Business Cards

Business cards are surprisingly underused in today’s day and age. Many owners of Martial Arts schools pass them over when designing a marketing campaign.

Though business cards might seem outdated, they most assuredly are not. When designed by an expert printing company (hint, hint, The Printing Dojo), your business cards will accomplish several things at once.

First of all, they look professional. Handing out business cards when you meet new people will create a positive impression in their minds. It will make them more likely to attend your school or tell others about it. Simply put, business cards create an air of professionalism that no owner of a Martial Arts school should go without. Just because you don’t have a desk job, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat your position with respect. If you don’t, why should anyone else?

At the same time as a business card makes you look professional, it will also set you apart from other Martial Arts schools. As mentioned above, few other owners likely have business cards of their own. When a potential student sees that you do, you just might stick in their head as the school they wish to attend. Anything you can do to stick in a potential customer’s head is a good thing.

Finally, a business card is incredibly helpful for networking. Direct mail and brochures/flyers are great for marketing but sometimes you are caught off guard in front of a potential student. By giving them a business card, you will increase the chances that they will look further into your Martial Arts school. Whether you’re at a party, at the bus stop, or even in line at the local coffee shop, you never know when you’re going to meet someone with an interest in Martial Arts training.

And guess where the best place to get business cards for your Martial Arts school is? That’s right – once again, it’s the world’s leader in creative marketing materials for Martial Arts Schools, printingdojo.com.

Invest in Martial Arts Promotional Products

If you own a Martial Arts school, then you better have a solid marketing campaign set up. Marketing is a surefire way to attract new students, retain current ones, and make more money in the long run.

Martial Arts are more popular now than ever before. There are more Martial Arts schools around than ever before. You have to do something to set your school apart from the rest. And that something is to market your service with the best promotional products available.

Invest in Martial Arts promotional products from The Printing Dojo for a head start on marketing.