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Which One Will Win?

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I’m going to be doing a marketing promo starting in February for a client. It’s a martial arts school that just moved to a new location, which means they’re looking for new students.

About 80% of their students are children. Of course, kids don’t sign up for karate classes, nor do they pay for their lessons. That’s done by parents and grandparents.

And adults aren’t necessarily looking for martial arts classes for the kids in their lives. The conversation going on in their heads is about getting these children into good colleges, and developing the mental and physical skills to get them there.

So I’m putting together four different mini-posters that the school will hang near mailboxes in apartment complexes. These apartments are within just a few blocks of the main boulevard where the school is located. The only difference in the posters is the picture of the child on it. Two different boys and two different girls. Okay, I lied – the poster with the girls also mentions that they’ll be learning self defense.

Each poster leads to a different landing page on my client’s website. Why? Track everything! Each landing page will be exactly the same. Each will have a video, and each will have a sign-up form. No, not for karate – but for an automated email series that will give parents certain techniques they can use at home to help the kids develop skills like focus and self discipline.

Why am I not trying to get them to sign up for classes? Well, it’s that old cliche – “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” That is, give them something they can use first. Be generous! Make yourself of value! Near the end of the email sequence, we’ll offer their kids free classes.

The main cost of the promotion – and remember, cost is different from price – will be the few hours one of the employees will have to spend driving around and taping up the ads. And yeah, they’ll have to go back out and do it all over again a couple weeks later.

Objects of the promotion:

  1. Build the prospect email list
  2. Prove value to the people reading the emails
  3. Build a relationship with prospects by building value
  4. Offer free classes to prospects
  5. Turn “test drivers” into paying customers

So – what’s your current marketing effort? What are the goals of your marketing, and how are you working towards them? Leave a comment below!