If you are starting a new mix martial arts school or you need more customers then you should be marketing online.
Online marketing is the fastest and most cost effective way to find new students. Here we will look at some of the most effective ways of mixed martial arts marketing online and how you can get started.
Before you begin you are going to need somewhere that you can direct online traffic. Many martial arts schools use their Facebook fan page as their home base. However I recommend instead that you setup your own website.
If you setup your main base on someone else’s platform (Facebook) you will be subject at their mercy as to how you can market your business.
Having your own martial arts website gives you control.
A Martial Arts Website
- Having made the decision to create your own website, choose a software program that is easy to use such as WordPress from wordpress.org You can edit and manage the website yourself without having to use a web programer to make simple changes or updates to your site.
- Hosting for your own website is relatively inexpensive and can be purchased for less than $4 a month. Hostgator is our recommended hosting service as it one of the largest hosting providers with excellent support and some of the lowest prices available.
- Website layout is determined by the theme and the plugins you choose for your site. There are many themes both paid and free but make sure your choice is mobile friendly as the number of people are using hand held devices for accessing the web are increasing.
Paid or free Advertising for Online Traffic
Your website will need traffic or visitors to successfully market your martial arts school and there are a number of ways to do this.
Free Online Traffic
- Website SEO
SEO is a term that means search engine optimisation. It refers to how your set up your website using specific keywords in a manner that search engines find your website.
It is a big topic but basically it is where and how you use keywords or keyword phrase on your website. Keywords are words or phrases that people type into the search engine to find information online. The easier it is for people to find your website the more free online traffic you will have access to.
It is very important you find the right keywords and include them in the website title, meta description, meta keywords and in the article you post. Include your contact details, location or address for local websites which will help your site to rank well within the search engines.
Installation of Google Analytics on your website gives valuable insight into your website visitors and potential customers. Information such as the demographic of your visitor, along with what pages they are visiting and what they are interested in may present you with alternative marketing opportunities.
- YouTube
YouTube is a great way to promote your business for free. It doesn’t cost you anything to put a video up other than your time. Mixed martial arts are particularly suitable for video marketing. To start with, film a series of videos with you demonstrating some of the basic mixed martial arts moves.
When you upload the video to YouTube you should include in the first line of the description a link to your schools website. Make sure that you write the website address in the following format, http:// and not www.
This is important because if you start with www. the link will not be clickable and you will get less traffic to your site. Remember earlier when we were talking about “keywords”? These are also important for your video marketing as well.
You want to include your keywords in the title of your video, 3 times in the description and in the video tags. So for example if you are targeting the keyword “Florida Mixed Martial Arts” you might title your video “Florida Mixed Martial Arts Expert Demonstrates Arm Bar”
Paid Traffic
- Google Adwords
Google Adwords is the largest online advertising platform. It operates on what is known as a pay per click (PPC) basis. This means that when your ad is displayed you are only charged when someone clicks on it. The first step is to register a Google Adwords account.
Once you have your account setup you will need to select which “keywords” you want to target. So if you were running a mixed martial arts business in Florida, you might want to target keywords like “Best mixed martial arts school in Florida” and “Top Florida martial arts schools”. Once you create your ad, you can redirect them back to your main website when they click on your ad.
- Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are another excellent way of promoting your business. Facebook Ads allows you to target by demographic information rather than by “keywords”. So for example if you find out that your ideal customer is someone who is male, aged 20 – 24, and who has listed his hobbies as karate, then you can have your ads displayed to only people who match this description.
If you have a Facebook fan page, you should redirect customers to that location rather than to your external website because Facebook charges you less if you keep customers on their platform.
Online Marketing
One of fastest and most effective ways to reach potential customers for your martial arts school is through online marketing. My preferred option is to to create your own martial arts website because you are full control of your site. A Facebook fan page is another option and you will have access to their ads at cheaper rates if you use their platform.
If you can master this skill of online marketing, the benefits of increased online traffic to your martial arts website will create terrific opportunity for your business.
