Fall time is the best time: Back to School Marketing Strategies
Part II
By Darren A. Gaitan
Summertime is almost over and I’m sure you’re sighing with relief.
Summertime can be the most challenging time for many school owners
across the country. You’re competing with daycares, summer
vacations, sports camps, summer school, and students’ mentalities of
summer relaxation. I’m not going to lie to you, summertime can be
very discouraging. Here’s the good news: Once it is over there is
only one direction to go, and that’s up! In June, when school lets
out, I can’t wait for school to be back in season again. It’s funny
because I feel like a kid who can’t wait for summer to be here.
How’s that for irony?
When your students go back to school, it’s the biggest helping hand
you could ever ask for. The best part about your students going back
to school is that they have new teachers and new classrooms. This
means that there are 25-35 brand new leads for every class that you
speak to. Before we go any further, let’s be sure to re-evaluate how
we conduct our school talks. We should always refer to school talks
as “Interactive Child Safety Presentations” because it is less
intimidating, so teachers seem to respond better to this term.
Forget that you’re there to gain new students and convince yourself
that you’re there to educate. I always explain to the teacher that I
must get the students attention with kicks and punches in order for
my safety message to be retained. I also explain that I reward the
class with board breaking at the end of lesson because it gives the
students incentive to listen and absorb my message. What teacher
could consciously turn you down with this type of an approach?
There are two things that every school owner needs to be doing in
order to take full advantage of the back to school rush. First, a
letter should be handed out to every student in school. This letter
must be signed by their teacher and must be returned to you before
the end of September or middle of October. The letter introduces you
as their martial arts instructor and explains all about your testing
and belt advancement policies and procedures. I require all students
to have parent and teacher permission in order to advance in rank.
As instructors, we should all be implementing this because we are
teaching students how earn black belts in life. At the bottom of the
letter there is a “P.S.” which asks the teacher if they would like
to host an “Interactive Child Safety Presentation”. They have the
option to check yes or no. Even if they check no, they will have
plenty of opportunities to say yes throughout the school year when
they have to sign off on their testing forms. This one strategy can
give you all the students you need for the rest of the year. One
side note: it is very important to keep accurate stats on who has
turned in their letter and who has not. In the past I used excel,
but since the integration of MAS into our school, it has made this
process a whole lot easier. I changed one of the custom fields to
“school letter 05-06” and when they bring it in I have the front
desk person type in the word “yes”. Then I print out a column report
that tells me who has turned their form. You can even export this
report to excel. I do this because it keeps an accurate account and
history of every student in the school. In addition, I require the
letter to be signed by all new members throughout the school year so
that I always have a fresh list of teachers every month.
The second thing every owner needs to adjust in their school in
order to take advantage of the back to school rush is their testing
applications. Be sure to change your testing applications to include
a “P.S”. to the teacher about the “Interactive Active Child Safety
Presentation”. This is something that every school owner should do
immediately because it gives you an opportunity to get new students
every time you hold belt testing. If you have 30 kids testing and
you get 3 presentations booked, that could potentially be all the
students you need for the month. There have been times where I did
four presentations in a month, and signed up over 20 students from
those presentations. This was all the recruiting I needed to do for
the month and it gave me extra time to focus on renewals. We hold
testing every month, but not every student is eligible to test, so I
have requests coming in every month. Using this simple strategy will
help generate leads for your school, and remember we are in a
contact sport. The more people you contact, the better you will do!
Check your email next week for part III of this series. If you need
a copy of the letter to the teacher or an example of the testing
applications, please feel free to contact me darren@championsway.com
.
Darren A. Gaiten
Associate Consultant
ChampionsWay Inc.
877.774.5425
darren@championsway.com
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