Ideas for bringing in new beginners?

[NeilT]

hi

our club needs to bring in some new adult beginners, as its getting a bit top heavy, so looking for some ideas to attract beginners.

Any suggestions/ things that worked for your club / ideas etc much appreciated.

Thanks

Neil

[bushido_man96]

With the holidays coming around, you could offer some holiday special to potential customers.

[Dobbersky]

Is there a local radio station you can get on or a 1/2 marathon that you can do in Gi's and a group, handing out leaflets by the non-runners

Just an Idea

[joesteph]

My instructor has advertised that the first two weeks are free, so the wary ones get acclimated. She'll also allow no contract as well as a break if taking a six-month or 12-month one.

As always, there's the invitation to observe a class, but an adult beginner wouldn't even think of that unless it's offered.

[tori]

If you already haven't done so, run a special just for beginners. Hold classes only for them to get used to being new. Sometimes when a new white belt comes into classes and sees that everyone in there is brown belt and above, they feel overwhelmed and out of place. We lost several new students for the same reason. We decided to hold beginner classes until they reach a certain rank, and then acclimate them into the other program.

[Tiger1962]

Here are some ideas I had:

1) Put up flyers on supermarket bulletin boards, community newspapers, laundromats, etc.

2) Put flyers on windshields of cars in a commuter parking area.

3) Offer a few free introductory classes for adults and have your existing adult white belts take the class also. This should alleviate any intimidation or apprehension potential newbies might have.

4) Offer a free (or low cost) basic self defense class in the evening after people get home from work. Adults like to know how to defend themselves in typical every day situations.

5) Emphasize that the class is adults only and no kids are allowed in the adult class.

6) Offer an open-house type of day on the weekend. Have your lower rank students do demonstrations and have an open question & answer discussion, hand out information, refreshments.

Just a few ideas...

[rockdan]

Our school recently started pushing for new beginners as well. Some of the things we have been trying are:

-Commercial at the local movie theater before the movies start. It was a little pricey, but it seems to be working because we are getting quite a bit of business from it.

-Referral program: the students get referral cards so their friends can try the beginners class free for one month. It is nice because students get to try it out and see if they like it and it also encourages current students to let people know about the school because they get $10 gift cards for the school for every person they have sign up.

-Free uniform with a two-month sign-up for the beginners class.

-We also have an 8-week beginners class that runs for an hour twice a week. It allows students to meet some upper belts and get comfortable with the basics before they move on to the advanced classes.

[joesteph]

We . . . have an 8-week beginners class that runs for an hour twice a week. It allows students to meet some upper belts and get comfortable with the basics before they move on to the advanced classes.

Is yours a larger school, Rock Dan? Mid-sized? I wondered because of the availability of upper belts assisting on a regular basis with newcomers, and having enough newcomers to start a special class.

BTW, from what I read in your posting, whoever's in charge has good business sense, especially dealing with today's economy.

[sensei8]

In the current global economic downturn thats closed 3,500 Martial Arts schools this year; I'd say that nothing ventured is nothing gained, just as something ventured is everything gained.

1) Put up flyers on supermarket bulletin boards, community newspapers, laundromats, etc.

Providing that the owner/landlord/property manager allow and/or don't come right behind you taking them down.

2) Put flyers on windshields of cars in a commuter parking area.

This won't work in most Wal-Marts because if Wal-Mart Management find out, they'll just take them down and if you're still on property passing them out/placing on windshields then Managment will ask you to leave private property.

I once passed out flyers at a 5 story parking lot to only have security take them down and toss them in the trash right behind me.

Great ideas but I just caution so that you're not wasting money and time and getting in trouble with whomever.

[rockdan]

joesteph, I think I would call us medium-sized. Depending on time of year we have anywhere from 50-80 full-time students, the majority being kids under 15. We have 4 - 1 hour long kids classes and 8 - 1.5 hour long adult classes each week, with Friday nights as a open workout night.

We run beginners classes on a regular basis, so there is always at least one group learning, if not two. Basically, each month a new beginners class starts. We have it staggered, as an example, in January our Mon/Wed 7-8pm class will start and run until the end of February...and in the beginning of Feb our Tue/Thurs 4:30-5:30pm class will start and run until the end of March. The cycle continues all year round. Sometimes they will have 12 new students, sometimes they will have 2, it all depends.

Our brown belts and black belts are requested to help out for some nights of the beginners class, especially for rolling, throwing and sparring. In general, we have at least one person in addition to the school owner helping in the beginners class. On the sparring and throwing nights, we will have anywhere from 2-6 additional upperbelts helping.

We just started with the new promotional and advertising stuff because we only recently started having competition in our area. The school has been here for 13 years and pretty much ran on word-of-mouth but just within the past 2 years, two other schools have opened within 15 miles of us. Our instructor has a good system and pulls no stunts or punches with the students (no pun intended ) In fact, in the past 2 months we have signed ~25 new students to the beginners classes even with the crazy economy. We will just have to wait and see how long they last in the regular classes!