Where are you putting your dollar?

Increasing Enrollments vs. Improving Retention

Each individual purchase you make for your school generally will promote either enrollments or retention, and in some cases both. Some school owners make their investment intentionally to improve one area, for example: investing in the construction of a larger sign for the front of your school increases the ability to engage the walk-by traffic's interest, hence promotes enrollment. On the other hand, purchasing new equipment is a retention-based investment as it will undoubtedly generate excitement and rejuvenate the class experience for students that have already been training at the school.

If your school has been in operation for a few years or more, you would most likely analyze which aspect of your school requires more attention, and make your investment accordingly. However in the beginning, it would seem logical to focus on investments that will enhance both aspects contributing to your school's growth given the limited budget.

What investments will improve both your enrollments as well as your student retention? Anything that will improve your ability to streamline a process in the school, whether it is the manner newer students are followed up on, the way classes are organized to accomodate students of all motivation levels, or the way expiring memberships are prevented. Training equipment, signs, mats, curriculum videos etc. will not aid you in streamlining your business operations.

Front Desk Software

Enrollments

How many people called in this week? How did they hear of you? Do they have any past training experience? When should we contact them next to follow up for another intro class? The answers to these questions can be found with ease when you use Front-desk software, especially when the company you purchase it from offers unlimited training.

Using front desk software will help you make informed decisions towards where to focus your marketing budgeting based on where the bulk of your leads are coming from. Also, you will be able to pre-frame the delivery of your enrollment pitch when you always know if the prospect has trained elsewhere before, MAS even tracks the lead's reason for being interested eg. Fitness vs. competition etc.

Retention

Martial Artists generally do not quit overnight, it is a one-two month process when they come less and less to class, ultimately deciding to discontinue their training. Although no software can catch the exact moment and reason someone loses motivation, MAS can alert you when theiris a difference in someone's training pattern. This way you can be proactive in addressing the student's absence, offering solutions to their challenge, and make them feel important. We all know that trying to renew a student who has not been coming is very difficult;using MAS will prevent you from having to encounter this. We haven't even begun to mention the program's ability to alert you on missed payments, students with medical conditions, and other situations that can harm our relationship with our students

Custom Website

Enrollments

These days more and more people are searching google or the yellow pages online directory for a martial arts school near them, and more students are referring friends to your website for information about your offering! Basically, a website is often a school's first impression, and unfortunately for some, the last impression. Your website must achieve the following: engage the visitor, collect lead’s contact info, and take them to an action.

Retention

Having an interactive website where students can message each other, get updates regarding school events, and access their personal training information will add to the feeling of being apart of community when training at your school. This is a proven retention technique, and is extremely easy to manage when ChampionsWay creates your site.

Mr. Marketer

Enrollments

Many schools are already using the “drip method”–contacting leads periodically via email, direct mail, or phone calls. The content varies from informative articles to basic intro offers. Regardless, the “drip method”is only effective when the material is sent consistently. Mr. Marketer is the only program that easily automates the sending of your campaigns, and provides statistics for each campaign’s performance.

Retention

Keeping in contact with students regularly is crucial for strong retention, unfortunately, making sure that everyone receives a “We miss you card”when they miss a class or a birthday card on their birthday can be a lot of work. Simply stated, regardless of how much time is required to keep up with your students and organize who needs what, you must do it to be successful. Mr. Marketer is such a valuable retention asset because it can do all of this for you.