Social media marketing

[J. Pickard]

Has anyone had notable success using social media as a marketing platform? If so, how did you do it? I tried on my own with FB ads and when that didn't work I hired a professional and still saw ZERO return from social media marketing. 100% of all new students are coming from word of mouth and marketing through community events.

 

[MadMartigan]

Has anyone had notable success using social media as a marketing platform? If so, how did you do it? I tried on my own with FB ads and when that didn't work I hired a professional and still saw ZERO return from social media marketing. 100% of all new students are coming from word of mouth and marketing through community events.

I have gotten some new students from Facebook ads. I use the ads to direct people to the school FB page with a send message button. This then puts people directly in touch with me to answer their questions (which I try to answer as soon a possible of course).
The cost has been manageable (and a nice tax write off). I only run ads when looking for a few new leads (usually a few days in a row every few months).

That said, I run my school as a hobby; and only really care that I have enough students that it doesn't cost me money to teach (rent space, etc).

 

[bushido]

I JUST posted this in answer to another post, lol...

I have a business that does online marketing and primarily fitness content, both workout videos and written content specifically developed for each customer.
Because something is consistent, that does not make it a McDojo...
If you want to drive business: Create a consistent brand! Research & know very specifically your target demographic. Create a website. Create your social media accounts. Branding must carry over & be consistent across all platforms. Create content to be posted on your sites blog and on your social media at least twice per day. Do not use copy & pasted content from other sites, this will be ignored by Google search engines & get tagged as spam content. The content MUST be keyworded for search engines, and social media MUST have hash tags, but no more than 10 hash tags per post. Develop a lost leader (give-away) product. Design a one page ad and sales funnel for the give-away, which collects their e-mail and leads to a low cost front end product and another higher priced back end. Get that funnel active through various methods. Create an e-mail list from that. Start a cold-call out reach program... 10,000 e-mails to start. Define and refine your ad copy. Start a Geo Marketing campaign for local potential customers. Build out from this, expanding products & services.
6-8 months, and you will start to blow up your sales and increase membership incredibly quick.

 

[drop bear]

This gym has a good Facebook media presence.

https://m.facebook.com/courageTC/

 

[dvcochran]

Has anyone had notable success using social media as a marketing platform? If so, how did you do it? I tried on my own with FB ads and when that

didn't work I hired a professional and still saw ZERO return from social media marketing. 100% of all new students are coming from word of mouth and marketing through community events.

Are you a for profit brick & mortar school? Do you already have a student base and looking to grow?

Experience tells me word of mouth is the strongest tool, by far. But this takes time since the number of mouths getting the word out there has to be grown. And this in and of itself has to be worked regularly.

If you already have a base of students, have you tried looking from within for advertising help? Using people who are already working out really helps promote a stronger sense of connection, unity, and family. Pay them or swap the work out for classes/equipment or, whatever. You may be surprised how 'easy' it is for some people to navigate social media.
For example, it took me a while to learn the purpose and need for hashtags when trying to shotgun content. I have also learned there is as much or more value in showcasing your location than your face. People need to see a good, clean place to workout.
Opinions vary but creating branding using a face is sketchy at best and better served in something like real estate, legal, modeling or such.

Since you have already used a pay service you have some experience. Chart the successes and failures. Learn what worked and target these. One thing I feel is often overlooked these days is in person networking. Get to know the other schools in your area and discover what is working for them. Get involved with the professional organizations in your town. Get involved with the schools in your area. Build your clientele.

Does this sacrifice your training? No, absolutely not!!! Let's not even mention the word McDojo.

 

[J. Pickard]

Are you a for profit brick & mortar school? Do you already have a student base and looking to grow?

Experience tells me word of mouth is the strongest tool, by far. But this takes time since the number of mouths getting the word out there has to be grown. And this in and of itself has to be worked regularly.

If you already have a base of students, have you tried looking from within for advertising help? Using people who are already working out really helps promote a stronger sense of connection, unity, and family. Pay them or swap the work out for classes/equipment or, whatever. You may be surprised how 'easy' it is for some people to navigate social media.
For example, it took me a while to learn the purpose and need for hashtags when trying to shotgun content. I have also learned there is as much or more value in showcasing your location than your face. People need to see a good, clean place to workout.
Opinions vary but creating branding using a face is sketchy at best and better served in something like real estate, legal, modeling or such.

Since you have already used a pay service you have some experience. Chart the successes and failures. Learn what worked and target these. One thing I feel is often overlooked these days is in person networking. Get to know the other schools in your area and discover what is working for them. Get involved with the professional organizations in your town. Get involved with the schools in your area. Build your clientele.

Does this sacrifice your training? No, absolutely not!!! Let's not even mention the word McDojo.

We are a for profit school that has been around for 30 years but never run as a business until I took over in end of 2019 start of 2020. Our facility is pictured in all of our ads and is professionally cleaned so I can check that box.

 

[dvcochran]

We are a for profit school that has been around for 30 years but never run as a business until I took over in end of 2019 start of 2020. Our facility is pictured in all of our ads and is professionally cleaned so I can check that box.

Sounds good. Could you provide your website? Just for reference.

 

[J. Pickard]

Sounds good. Could you provide your website? Just for reference.

newheightsfitness.com

 

[drop bear]

Isn't Facebook basically word of mouth.

 

[Instructor]

With the exception of this forum and possibly YouTube I avoid social media in general and Facebook in particular. If you want to drive your web rankings up for a stand alone website just take the time to research SEO (search engine optimization). If you are looking for more local business then old fashioned marketing locally is hard to beat. Frankly, simple word of mouth is better than any ad campaign.

 

[WaterGal]

newheightsfitness.com

When I click on "kids classes" or "adult classes", it tells me about the classes, which is great, but there's no call to action, trial offer, or way to book a trial class. There also aren't any photos on those pages.

I'd suggest that you have a separate page for each program you offer. Each page should have high-quality image(s) of happy young kids/older kids/adults in martial arts uniforms, along with the text about the program, and near the top and bottom of the page it should have a call to action/trial offer, like "get started with a free trial class" or "get started with 2 weeks of classes and a uniform for $30!", with a link to where they can book their first class.

 

[J. Pickard]

When I click on "kids classes" or "adult classes", it tells me about the classes, which is great, but there's no call to action, trial offer, or way to book a trial class. There also aren't any photos on those pages.

I'd suggest that you have a separate page for each program you offer. Each page should have high-quality image(s) of happy young kids/older kids/adults in martial arts uniforms, along with the text about the program, and near the top and bottom of the page it should have a call to action/trial offer, like "get started with a free trial class" or "get started with 2 weeks of classes and a uniform for $30!", with a link to where they can book their first class.

This is really good insight! Thanks I will get to work on this.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Has anyone had notable success using social media as a marketing platform? If so, how did you do it? I tried on my own with FB ads and when that didn't work I hired a professional and still saw ZERO return from social media marketing. 100% of all new students are coming from word of mouth and marketing through community events.

The response you've seen makes perfect sense to me. It doesn't really matter if 10,000,000 see your ad, if 9,999,999 of them live 2000+ miles away. A dojo is very much a local market thing. So it makes sense to join community events, do demos at schools, hold class in a park, that sort of thing.

 

[J. Pickard]

What are the best platforms to promote your brand?

lately, not much. I did have success with targeted FB, instagram, and google ads for a while when working with a professional marketing team. But ever since the bad press around Meta and google over the past year Its just a waste of money. Even word of mouth doesn't have the affect it used to. 20 years ago we could do 10 local events and get 50-80 new students that stay for a year or more, the past 2 years running the same events we get maybe 5. Now, half the time even if the kids want to go the parents don't feel like bringing them.

 

[tkdroamer]

I fully agree with @Dirty Dog. Local events, schools, and organizations are more effective.

 

[SarahCarey]

Hey, just saw your post from a while back! Sounds like FB ads weren't your BFF, huh? No sweat, we've all been there.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Thread locked because of recurring spam.

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