Hello again everyone! I thought I'd post some info about the recent Star Wars themed classes that we offered at our school, as well as helped many other ATA Taekwondo and other martial arts schools do too. They all had great success using these methods, and I thought I'd share them with other school owners looking for unique promotional ideas to get new students in the door. All of the info below has been pulled from the GlowWeapons.com website. However, all of the downloadable files, you'll have to go to the site for.
Starting Off: The General Idea
With the upcoming animated "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" coming out in theaters on August 15th, kids are going to be more excited than ever to learn the ways of the force. Any animated movie is naturally going to draw a younger audience, which makes up majority of a martial arts school. You will need to rent a Star Wars character costume to wear in front of the theater, take pictures with kids, and hand out cards promoting both your class, and to pick up FREE pictures of them with the Star Wars character. Kono magazine is also promoting the movie in this month's issue, so at $1 each these magazines make great handouts and help in generating interested in the movie, your school, and martial arts in general.
Towards the beginning of the week following the opening movie, you will schedule a night for "Light Saber Training Classes." There will be two seperate classes this night, each about 1 hour long. At 5:30pm, this class will be for non-members only, which will be the ones that have signed up from your promotions at your local theater. At 6:30pm, this class should be over and will give you plenty of time to get sign ups and uniforms done before your next group of people come in. The next class will start at 7:30pm, which will be ran as a buddy night for your existing students. A sign up sheet is placed in your school for your members to sign up ONLY if they are bringing a friend who is not currently a member.
Every aspect of your marketing should be geared towards filling these classes up. Click here to check out the light sabers we produce, which are actually rated for impact. (The price you see is retail price, not wholesale) The light sabers that we offer use "snap & glow" sticks, which last for many hours. Be sure to order all of the materials that you need at least 2 weeks in advance and remember to orders spares or extras for staff members, etc. We anticipate that we will get backed up by a few days as it gets close to the movie opening. But by hosting both the non-member class and buddy night in the same night, you will be able to re-use the sabers again for both classes. The students will only borrow these during the class and both of these classes should be FREE since you are looking for sign ups immediately afterwards. If you decide that you don't want to do light sabers for the class, you can do that as well. But think of it from this perspective. What kid that just seen the movie would pass up a chance to use a real glowing light saber??? For all of these classes, you should have your Star Wars character make an appearance in costume. You can even have a couple of Star Wars characters choreograph a short demo routine with light sabers to show off in these classes. After they've learned some of the techniques in class, you can even have them battle some of the bad guys!
During your initial introductory "Light Saber Training Class" the students will only use the sabers for a portion of the class. No more than 1 month after the initial release of the movie, you should have a dedicated Light Saber class that the students will pay for to attend and be able to keep their light sabers. Replacement glow sticks will be needed at this time if you are re-using the same light sabers to give away for this one. This class will be for members only and will be ran as more of an actual weapons training class in the dark, rather than a mass introductory class. The whole class should be dedicated to learning more aspects of using a saber such as choreographed routines. New members that were generated from your initial classes only got a taste of the light saber training, so will be likely to sign up for the specialty training class. Also remember that any of your pre-existing students that werent able to attend buddy night would not have had a chance yet to use the sabers, and will love the opportunity. A charge of $20-$25 for this class is recommended.
Before the Movie Release
There are a number of things that you must do before the movie even comes out to begin drawing attention to your upcoming "Light Saber Training Class." First of all, find a costume rental store near you. You are going to want to rent a Star Wars costume for your promotions at the theater and the class. Click here to search for costume rental stores by zipcode in your area. BlockBusterCostumes.com also has a good selection online that you can buy. You may want to start promoting your class by having someone in the costume outside of your school or the theater several days before the movie comes out. Pick up some light sabers or staffs from us with spare glow sticks too for your evening or night time costume promotions. You will need to talk to your local theater to see if they will allow you to do this in front of their building or inside. Some theaters may not want to allow you to do it. But most will understand that having a Star Wars character in front of their theater will only help their business. Prior to the movie release, justing having someone in a Star Wars costume in front of your own Martial Arts school with a banner behind you advertising the class will work too. Its nearly impossible for someone to pass by without seeing a Star Wars character with a light saber. Thats just not something that you normally see. You will also want to start hanging up promotional flyers around town. A lot of places take these down on a certain day of the week, so make sure to put more up on the movie release weekend again too.
The Sign Up Sheet
First, you'll need to figure out how many people you can fit on your workout floor with light sabers. For the first class of the evening for non-members, you will not need to have a sign up sheet out in your school for this, but keep one in your office for keeping tracking of new prospect students calling in to register for the class. So what happens if this fills up and you've only got so many light sabers? There are a few options in this scenario. First, for the ones that are pre-registering for the intro class, once the class is full you can start scheduling the same setup for a different night. Remember spare glow sticks will be needed if you do this. The second option would be to just take as many as you can possibly fit into the first introductory class, and then have them take turns using a light saber. The third option is that very likely you will have a lot of walk-ins that didnt pre-register for the class. In this case, if your buddy night class is not as full, you can allow some of the walk-ins to spill over into the buddy night class. Make sure that you have the sign up sheet out for your students plenty in advance, at least 2 weeks before the movie comes out. But you may be asking why two seperate classes? Because I guarantee that if you do everything right, you'll have more new students in the door that you'll know what to do with!
The buddy night class is the one that you will need to put out into your school. In order for your existing students to attend, they MUST bring a friend who is not currently a member at your school. Start giving out handouts for this class to your students to give to their friends. Be sure to add the day and time of the class, as well as your phone number. If you'd like to put other information, this can always be printed on the opposite side.
At the Movies
This is where you are going to get the big numbers in prospect students here. If you can set it up with your theater so that you can be out front during the movie show times, that is the best option. Start your promotions outside of the theater 30 minutes prior to the movie start time and you will be able to hit all of the people going in to watch that movie. If there are a lot of people going into the theater or some are running late, they may not have time to do pictures before movie, but may want to do it afterwards. So plan on being there both at the start and end of the show. If you can't do it at the theater, find another area very close to it, or another high traffic area such as fast food restaurants, etc.
In either case, you will need 3-4 people for this operation. One person is of course in the Star Wars costume with a cool light saber. Remember to get spare glow sticks for your saber. You will then need a second person that will be taking pictures of kids with the Star Wars character with a digital camera. The best approach to this is to have the person in the costume as friendly as possible, going up to kids and giving them high fives, and then your second person will ask if they "Would like to have a FREE picture taken with ______? (whatever the character is)" Use the word free because a lot of people may assume there is a charge for this. Now, your 3rd and 4th members of your team have the cards that you will be handing out to the parents after you've taken the picture with their kids. You will need to tell them that you "Are doing a free Light Saber Training Class on whatever date, and they can pick up their free pictures after the class. Just call this number to register." Of course even if they dont get their picture taken, still be sure to give them a card. You arent actually gathering their info at this point in time. Asking them to fill out any information seems more like you are trying to get something FROM them, as opposed to doing something FOR them. Once they call to register for the class, then you'll get all of their info. Not having your school address on there will actually cause most of them to call first rather than just showing up. This will help you maintain the class attendence levels where you want them. Just add the class day and time, as well as your phone number to these and you're set!
Before the class
The night before your classes you should have all of your decorations and everything ready. As far as setting the mood and tone for your class, any sort of Star Wars type decorations you can do will generate more excitement. We currently carry a 6ft Darth Vader Cardboard Prop as well as a 6ft Cardboard Prop of C3PO & R2D2. But there is a lot of other Star Wars type decorations out there.
Next, how in the world are you going to do this with 50 brand new people that just walked in the door? After they fill out a general information waiver for you school, give them a name tag. The white sticky labels that are made for printing off of computers work great, and come 30 per page, in packages of 300 for about $5 at any store that carries a little bit of office supplies. Knowing their names during class will help you, as well as after class so that you know just who in the world you are actually signing up.
During the Class
Once everything has started and you are 5-10 minutes into the class, you or one of your staff members will need to go around to all of the parents and pass out a short explaination of what Martial Arts can do, along with a special offer for that night only. The special offer should include 2 weeks of classes and a uniform, with the price being about what 1/2 a month's class fees would cost. The reason for doing this about 5-10 minutes into the class is that now they've had a few minutes to watch whats going on before you try to sell them something. And they now also have the next 50-55 minutes to see the value of what they will be doing for their child. This also gives them a little notice of paying a little money at the end of the class versus springing it on them right before they walk out the door. Just fill in the two prices on this sheet. The first one is the price at which you will offer your 2 week special. The second price you'll want to fill in is the average monthly dues. Most people will want to know an approximate cost before doing a 2 week special to know that they can afford to do it after the special is over.
After the Class
With high volumes of people, you obviously cant go into program details and costs with everyone that night. So when they pay for the special that night, just tell them on their first class night you will schedule a private orientation to go over all of those details with them. This keeps things moving fast and ensures that you get a lot of sign ups. If they had to wait an hour to pay, they'd probably leave. So you want to keep everything moving fast. Have one person taking payments, and then another person giving the students the appropriate uniform size so that they can take it home with them that night.
Now for the free pictures that you have taken at the theater over the past weekend. Have them already seperated into folders on your computer by the day and showtime to make it really easy for you. Basically what happens is they will pick out their picture from your computer and you can rename the file with their name, so now you know who it is. There's three options now as to what you can do with the picture. The first option is that you can email it to them. The second option is that you can print it off from your own computer, but make sure you have a good quality printer, lots of ink, and photo paper. The third option is the one that we used during our kung fu panda class. We actually have a great print shop across the street that agreed to stay open during our class and we just emailed the pictures over and then they walked over and picked them up right after the class.
Another thing that is a must is adding a border to the picture that has your business name on it. That way when they hang their picture up when they get home, your Martial Arts school name is always right there too.
Let me know if you have other ideas on this sort of scenario, I'm always open!
Starting Off: The General Idea
With the upcoming animated "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" coming out in theaters on August 15th, kids are going to be more excited than ever to learn the ways of the force. Any animated movie is naturally going to draw a younger audience, which makes up majority of a martial arts school. You will need to rent a Star Wars character costume to wear in front of the theater, take pictures with kids, and hand out cards promoting both your class, and to pick up FREE pictures of them with the Star Wars character. Kono magazine is also promoting the movie in this month's issue, so at $1 each these magazines make great handouts and help in generating interested in the movie, your school, and martial arts in general.
Towards the beginning of the week following the opening movie, you will schedule a night for "Light Saber Training Classes." There will be two seperate classes this night, each about 1 hour long. At 5:30pm, this class will be for non-members only, which will be the ones that have signed up from your promotions at your local theater. At 6:30pm, this class should be over and will give you plenty of time to get sign ups and uniforms done before your next group of people come in. The next class will start at 7:30pm, which will be ran as a buddy night for your existing students. A sign up sheet is placed in your school for your members to sign up ONLY if they are bringing a friend who is not currently a member.
Every aspect of your marketing should be geared towards filling these classes up. Click here to check out the light sabers we produce, which are actually rated for impact. (The price you see is retail price, not wholesale) The light sabers that we offer use "snap & glow" sticks, which last for many hours. Be sure to order all of the materials that you need at least 2 weeks in advance and remember to orders spares or extras for staff members, etc. We anticipate that we will get backed up by a few days as it gets close to the movie opening. But by hosting both the non-member class and buddy night in the same night, you will be able to re-use the sabers again for both classes. The students will only borrow these during the class and both of these classes should be FREE since you are looking for sign ups immediately afterwards. If you decide that you don't want to do light sabers for the class, you can do that as well. But think of it from this perspective. What kid that just seen the movie would pass up a chance to use a real glowing light saber??? For all of these classes, you should have your Star Wars character make an appearance in costume. You can even have a couple of Star Wars characters choreograph a short demo routine with light sabers to show off in these classes. After they've learned some of the techniques in class, you can even have them battle some of the bad guys!
During your initial introductory "Light Saber Training Class" the students will only use the sabers for a portion of the class. No more than 1 month after the initial release of the movie, you should have a dedicated Light Saber class that the students will pay for to attend and be able to keep their light sabers. Replacement glow sticks will be needed at this time if you are re-using the same light sabers to give away for this one. This class will be for members only and will be ran as more of an actual weapons training class in the dark, rather than a mass introductory class. The whole class should be dedicated to learning more aspects of using a saber such as choreographed routines. New members that were generated from your initial classes only got a taste of the light saber training, so will be likely to sign up for the specialty training class. Also remember that any of your pre-existing students that werent able to attend buddy night would not have had a chance yet to use the sabers, and will love the opportunity. A charge of $20-$25 for this class is recommended.
Before the Movie Release
There are a number of things that you must do before the movie even comes out to begin drawing attention to your upcoming "Light Saber Training Class." First of all, find a costume rental store near you. You are going to want to rent a Star Wars costume for your promotions at the theater and the class. Click here to search for costume rental stores by zipcode in your area. BlockBusterCostumes.com also has a good selection online that you can buy. You may want to start promoting your class by having someone in the costume outside of your school or the theater several days before the movie comes out. Pick up some light sabers or staffs from us with spare glow sticks too for your evening or night time costume promotions. You will need to talk to your local theater to see if they will allow you to do this in front of their building or inside. Some theaters may not want to allow you to do it. But most will understand that having a Star Wars character in front of their theater will only help their business. Prior to the movie release, justing having someone in a Star Wars costume in front of your own Martial Arts school with a banner behind you advertising the class will work too. Its nearly impossible for someone to pass by without seeing a Star Wars character with a light saber. Thats just not something that you normally see. You will also want to start hanging up promotional flyers around town. A lot of places take these down on a certain day of the week, so make sure to put more up on the movie release weekend again too.
The Sign Up Sheet
First, you'll need to figure out how many people you can fit on your workout floor with light sabers. For the first class of the evening for non-members, you will not need to have a sign up sheet out in your school for this, but keep one in your office for keeping tracking of new prospect students calling in to register for the class. So what happens if this fills up and you've only got so many light sabers? There are a few options in this scenario. First, for the ones that are pre-registering for the intro class, once the class is full you can start scheduling the same setup for a different night. Remember spare glow sticks will be needed if you do this. The second option would be to just take as many as you can possibly fit into the first introductory class, and then have them take turns using a light saber. The third option is that very likely you will have a lot of walk-ins that didnt pre-register for the class. In this case, if your buddy night class is not as full, you can allow some of the walk-ins to spill over into the buddy night class. Make sure that you have the sign up sheet out for your students plenty in advance, at least 2 weeks before the movie comes out. But you may be asking why two seperate classes? Because I guarantee that if you do everything right, you'll have more new students in the door that you'll know what to do with!
The buddy night class is the one that you will need to put out into your school. In order for your existing students to attend, they MUST bring a friend who is not currently a member at your school. Start giving out handouts for this class to your students to give to their friends. Be sure to add the day and time of the class, as well as your phone number. If you'd like to put other information, this can always be printed on the opposite side.
At the Movies
This is where you are going to get the big numbers in prospect students here. If you can set it up with your theater so that you can be out front during the movie show times, that is the best option. Start your promotions outside of the theater 30 minutes prior to the movie start time and you will be able to hit all of the people going in to watch that movie. If there are a lot of people going into the theater or some are running late, they may not have time to do pictures before movie, but may want to do it afterwards. So plan on being there both at the start and end of the show. If you can't do it at the theater, find another area very close to it, or another high traffic area such as fast food restaurants, etc.
In either case, you will need 3-4 people for this operation. One person is of course in the Star Wars costume with a cool light saber. Remember to get spare glow sticks for your saber. You will then need a second person that will be taking pictures of kids with the Star Wars character with a digital camera. The best approach to this is to have the person in the costume as friendly as possible, going up to kids and giving them high fives, and then your second person will ask if they "Would like to have a FREE picture taken with ______? (whatever the character is)" Use the word free because a lot of people may assume there is a charge for this. Now, your 3rd and 4th members of your team have the cards that you will be handing out to the parents after you've taken the picture with their kids. You will need to tell them that you "Are doing a free Light Saber Training Class on whatever date, and they can pick up their free pictures after the class. Just call this number to register." Of course even if they dont get their picture taken, still be sure to give them a card. You arent actually gathering their info at this point in time. Asking them to fill out any information seems more like you are trying to get something FROM them, as opposed to doing something FOR them. Once they call to register for the class, then you'll get all of their info. Not having your school address on there will actually cause most of them to call first rather than just showing up. This will help you maintain the class attendence levels where you want them. Just add the class day and time, as well as your phone number to these and you're set!
Before the class
The night before your classes you should have all of your decorations and everything ready. As far as setting the mood and tone for your class, any sort of Star Wars type decorations you can do will generate more excitement. We currently carry a 6ft Darth Vader Cardboard Prop as well as a 6ft Cardboard Prop of C3PO & R2D2. But there is a lot of other Star Wars type decorations out there.
Next, how in the world are you going to do this with 50 brand new people that just walked in the door? After they fill out a general information waiver for you school, give them a name tag. The white sticky labels that are made for printing off of computers work great, and come 30 per page, in packages of 300 for about $5 at any store that carries a little bit of office supplies. Knowing their names during class will help you, as well as after class so that you know just who in the world you are actually signing up.
During the Class
Once everything has started and you are 5-10 minutes into the class, you or one of your staff members will need to go around to all of the parents and pass out a short explaination of what Martial Arts can do, along with a special offer for that night only. The special offer should include 2 weeks of classes and a uniform, with the price being about what 1/2 a month's class fees would cost. The reason for doing this about 5-10 minutes into the class is that now they've had a few minutes to watch whats going on before you try to sell them something. And they now also have the next 50-55 minutes to see the value of what they will be doing for their child. This also gives them a little notice of paying a little money at the end of the class versus springing it on them right before they walk out the door. Just fill in the two prices on this sheet. The first one is the price at which you will offer your 2 week special. The second price you'll want to fill in is the average monthly dues. Most people will want to know an approximate cost before doing a 2 week special to know that they can afford to do it after the special is over.
After the Class
With high volumes of people, you obviously cant go into program details and costs with everyone that night. So when they pay for the special that night, just tell them on their first class night you will schedule a private orientation to go over all of those details with them. This keeps things moving fast and ensures that you get a lot of sign ups. If they had to wait an hour to pay, they'd probably leave. So you want to keep everything moving fast. Have one person taking payments, and then another person giving the students the appropriate uniform size so that they can take it home with them that night.
Now for the free pictures that you have taken at the theater over the past weekend. Have them already seperated into folders on your computer by the day and showtime to make it really easy for you. Basically what happens is they will pick out their picture from your computer and you can rename the file with their name, so now you know who it is. There's three options now as to what you can do with the picture. The first option is that you can email it to them. The second option is that you can print it off from your own computer, but make sure you have a good quality printer, lots of ink, and photo paper. The third option is the one that we used during our kung fu panda class. We actually have a great print shop across the street that agreed to stay open during our class and we just emailed the pictures over and then they walked over and picked them up right after the class.
Another thing that is a must is adding a border to the picture that has your business name on it. That way when they hang their picture up when they get home, your Martial Arts school name is always right there too.
Let me know if you have other ideas on this sort of scenario, I'm always open!