E-mail Marketing for Martial Arts Schools:

E-mail Marketing for Martial Arts Schools: Tips, Tricks, and Strategies That Will Send a Flood of New Students into Your School Practically Overnight! By Michael Parrella CEO of Full Contact Online Marketing http://www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com

Introduction Imagine this scenario You walk into the computer store, scouting out your next cool gadget you re gonna buy. You come across some pretty nifty stuff - stuff you can definitely see added to your collection at home. But you re not ready to buy that day. So you read up on the product, note the price, take some mental notes, and head home. Guess what? People do the same thing when they visit your website. Most people who come to your website are window shoppers. They want what you got - but they re not ready to buy now. Trouble is, most window shoppers get caught up in life. And they put that purchase on the back burner. But, say you could contact them a few days, or a week later, and remind of the powerful benefits of your program, and give them a call to action to sign up now? How many window shoppers could you convert? A lot, right? I mean, they re interested in your program after all. They just forgot because life got a little hectic. Well, here s how to make them remember - and get them to buy In two words: email marketing. With email marketing you can send those powerful reminders right to your prospects inboxes. Once or twice a week you can give them a hello and remind them about why your program is going rock their worlds. You can offer web specials, and give powerful, free information that helps their lives - while positioning you as a total expert. In a nutshell, here s how you can get started NOW so you can start converting those window shoppers into students today! www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 2

The First Steps -Getting your list in order In the world of Internet marketing, it is said that the money is in the list! So the first thing you want to do is to compile of list of all the leads your school has received over the years. For the purpose of email marketing, we only want the leads that you have an actual email address for. You d be surprised at how many places you probably have leads laying around missed appointments, people who never joined, lead box slips, birthday part guest lists, etc. Start separating them into different categories based on their current status or how you came across their name. For instance; if you got leads from a birthday party, you d want to market those differently than if they were an adult walk- in. You ll be formulating different email marketing campaigns for different types of prospects. -Get a Pro-Vendor account The next thing you ll need is a Vendor account. This is basically an online database that will hold all the different leads and enable you to set up separate lists. I prefer aweber.com but other services like constantcontact.com and icontact.com are very good as well. They all run about $20 a month or so. www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 3

These services will allow you to enter your lists as spreadsheets or text files - if you have trouble figuring it out, please call their help lines. They ll usually get you set up and ready to rock in just a few minutes time. -Subject Lines Most Internet marketers would agree that this one of the most if not the most important part of your email campaigns. The purpose of your subject line is to sell the click. You ve got to get people to open your email if they going to read all about your amazing martial arts program. Make sure that your subject line will get your prospect so curious that they can t NOT click your email. Here are some excellent examples of headlines that scored awesome open- rates; Subject Lines that work: Hey 1 Simple Self Defense Move How to get your child to listen the first time! Re: Does this frustrate you? 4 Self Defense tricks I just learned How my instructor saved my life Are you afraid of the dark? I need your opinion Can you do me a favor? Why most martial arts suck! Re: Crazy Self Defense (video) I m sure you can think of ways to structure an email around some of these subject lines or possibly think of tons more. Oh, one very important thing: make sure your headlines are relevant to the body of your email; if you just try to trick people with a provocative www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 4

headline and then don t deliver with your copy - they ll opt- out of your list with a quickness! -Write your content Now here comes the fun part writing the email! I find that it s easier to write a whole bunch of them at one time, especially once I m on a roll. So lock yourself in your office, turn off your phones and get ready to create! One method is to come up with a list of titles or themes for a specific campaign and then start banging them out. For instance, if you re doing an adult self- defense campaign, come up with a list of self- defense tips - maybe ten in total. Then I d come up with a catchy title/name for them like; 10 Self Defense Moves that Every Women Should Know Part I Sounds cool right? www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 5

Now figure out 10 really cool self defense moves some could be written and some can be video. You can send people from an email to your blog page (that has a video) or even your youtube.com page. That s just one example to get you going, but there is really no limit to the types of catagories that you can explore with your email marketing campaigns. Just look a few of the following angles to get inspiration; Kids Self Defense, Bullying, Improved Grades, Improved Behavior Adults Self Defense, Stress Relief, Fitness, Weight Loss, Health If you want a complete Done- For- You Kids Email Marketing Campaign, go to http://www.martialartsemailmachine.com and sign up for the best kids email marketing letters in the Martial Arts Biz! Now, check out these Ninja Email Marketing Tips that will help your campaign convert prospects into students [I ve got 50 of em but here s a few that are super- sweet] 1. Keep each line of text in your email limited to 8-12 works long. Short lines and sentences and lines are easier to read. 2. Keep it conversational not clinical. Make is sound like your writing to them specifically, not the masses. 3. Use words like me and I, not we and ours in your copy. Don t try to sound like you re a huge company. Be personal, people prefer it and respond better to it. 4. Insert 1-3 links to your web offer/site in each email. 5. Do NOT personalize the subject line. It s an old technique and none of my friends every use my name in the subject. You are not making them feel special by doing it. 6. Provide 3 times more content than pitch. If you make each email just about your amazing once- in- a- lifetime offer, you ll lose people left and right. Make sure that you write some emails that give them that Ah- hah moment and begin to trust you as an authority. Only then can you even ask for their money. www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 6

7. Read two of my blogs on email marketing - http://blog.membersolutions.com/bid/49264/turning- Your- Website- into- a- Gold- Mine- of- New- Leads- Part- 1- Mike- Parrella http://blog.membersolutions.com/bid/49789/turning- Your- Website- into- a- Gold- Mine- of- New- Leads- Part- 2- Michael- Parrella -The offer There are a few ways that you can structure your offer, here are some examples; 1) You can supply a link for them to click that will bring them to a web page that will enable them to 'take action' and do something - "enroll here", "'sign up now", "call today", etc. Of course, this only works if your site has an 'offer' on it. If it doesn't, give us a call and we'll show you how we can help - 516 543-0041. 2) You can give them a 'CTA' (call to action) in the email itself - "Call me directly at my academy today and I'll schedule your first class...on me!" This method is not as effective as many of your prospects may be reading your email at 'off hours.' If the email gets them excited enough to take an action, but you're not available to satisfy that action...you lose! The might remember to call you later, but then again they might not. 3) You can include a coupon in the email and tell them to print it out and bring it in. This is a little outdated but might serve as a decent alternative if you can't get numbers 1 or 2 going. Still, this will greatly reduce your success rate for sure. -Proofing Proof read your emails before sending! I know it sounds like common sense, but you d be surprised how often we make mistakes that aren t picked up by spell- check. My advice is to www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 7

either read it out load (slowly) and/or to have someone else proof read it before you send. -How to send it out When sending out your emails include both text and html versions. This way you ll get your email read by more computers. Some people set up their email systems to automatically block html or image emails. You also have a choice of two specific types of emails; 1) Autoresponders sequential emails delivered after a specific action (a person opts- in to your site) or on a time- released schedule. 2) Broadcast a specific message send out to everyone in your list simultaneously. Perfect for a unique offer, holiday sale, etc. -Time of day to send Most people get this one totally wrong. Here are some basic guidelines. As a rule, don t send to much email between the hours of 9-5 Monday thru Friday. People get inundated with tons of mail during these hours. There s a good chance yours would get lost in the shuffle. Studies show that most people read their emails in the morning before work, so a great time is to send from 5:30-6:30 am during the week. This way, when they do read them, yours should be close to the top of the proverbial pile. www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 8

-Frequency This is definitely something that seems to vary with different lists, different campaigns etc. Some people will say email em 12 days in a row until the either buy or opt- out of your list others will say to send once per week still others will say every 3-4 days at first and then once every other week after. The problem is they re ALL right! Frequency is one of those areas that you really have to test out. If you have a really compelling campaign, your list may want to get the info your giving each and every day. But if you ve got a long email, sending one each day may be a bit overwhelming. Here s what I like to do 2-3 days apart for the first 3-4 emails 4-6 days apart for the next 5-10 emails 7-12 days apart for each email after that. -Testing One of the coolest things about email marketing is how easy it is to test the results of your campaigns. You can split test and A/B headline to see which one is opened more, you can send out 2-4 different offers and see which one was bought more often than the others and you can even test time time and the day of your emails to see which ones get open or responded to best. The email programs I mentioned before make all this stuff super- easy to set up and track. If you want a complete Done- For- You Kids Email Marketing Campaign, go to http://www.martialartsemailmachine.com and sign up for the best kids email marketing letters in the Martial Arts Biz! www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 9

-Pull the trigger Okay, so you ve got your email list loaded into your email program, you ve picked a topic (or topics) for your campaigns, you ve got split testing set up for your headlines, written some great content, proof read them and you ve got them all scheduled out over the next few weeks Now it s time to hit the Send Email button and cross your fingers! Every Internet marketer has a twinge of doubt right before they send a campaign but don t worry. There are no documented cases of people catching a round kick to the face or suffering any injury from launching an email campaign. Best of luck and I personally hope that you use this info and help yourself and your academy to have a more prosperous year. Take care, Michael P. Michael Parrella has been one of the Martial Arts industry's top professionals for almost 20 years. He is an expert in Internet marketing for Martial Arts schools. His own Long Island, New York location has enrolled over 500 people in the last 12 months, just from his websites and his email marketing campaigns. Michael is also a published author and CEO of Full Contact Online Marketing, a Martial Arts Internet marketing and website design firm. They build 'recruitment-style' websites for schools, where prospects can enroll online for different memberships. His company's websites have also been able to produce extraordinary results for school owners all over the country. www.fullcontactonlinemarketing.com 10