? - how to improve enrollm ent

[Bulldog Ed]

Hello All,

Please, I need your input to figure out if I am on target and how to improve enrollment.

Situation:

•Just entered the 2nd month of opening a school

•The location is in a Wellness Center Gym

•The demo for this community is: age 35-65 and middle to upper middle class

•The school is open Mon (7-9pm) – Wed (730-930pm) – Fri (7-9pm) – Saturday 1-3pm)

•We offer Kempo Ju-Jutsu classes or self defense Escrima classes – both 4 times a week

•So far we have only 6 students here

•Attempting to get a children’s program – meeting some resistance

•My overhead is zero– except for my time – I have been layed of from the day job since August 1 – so there is a sense of urgency

Advertisements:

•We have had announcement in the Wellness news letter

•I have done weekly displays at this center – sometimes 4 displays a week

•We are about to place a PR release in the local paper

•Our flyers are everywhere in this location

Questions:

•So far only 6 students – Not happy with that number – is my expectations too high-?

•What else can I do to attract more students-?

•If I do not get the children’s program here – time to look elsewhere-?

I believe in the council of others in order to hopefully make a wise decision.

Your input, as always is respected and appreciated.

Thank you

[Kuma]

You could try looking into places like Craigslist, Myspace, and Facebook. A Youtube channel of some demo videos could be good too. Also - try offering some deals on membership rates to attract some interest.

[Montana]

Your best advertisement is your students. See if you can challenge them to each bring in one new student and maybe offer to give them 1/2 off each month they bring in a new student that signs up and PAYS a full month fees. Offer is good only for one student per month, but if each of your 6 students brings in a new student, then all of those bring in one the followibng month, you'll have a huge class ian a few months.

Of course, not everybody will stay, but if you make it a continuing offer you'll develope a core group of students that will be out there recruiting for you.

That worked pretty good for me when I started teaching at first.

[bushido_man96]

I agree with Montana's idea. Keep in mind that things like this take time, so you need to be patient. Good luck to you.

[ps1]

It's tough to teach within a wellness center. This is because you are usually charging a fee on top of the fee that all the members already pay. It's important to take your demonstrations and marketing outside of the center. It' sometimes costs a little more, but it's worth it.

Get active with the community. Let them know that your school cares and "gives back." Just look in a local paper and get a feel for the local events and be sure to participate in them. Attend your local government meetings as well. Get known by everyone.

I agree with the "bring a member" thing too.

Most important is to be very patient. It can take a few years to get up any kind of decent membership numbers. You've been there 2 months.

[DWx]

Welcome to KF Bulldog Ed

Bring a friend is a great way to increase numbers. Along a similar sort of line, don't underestimate Facebook. Things on there can spread quite quickly. Make a page for your school and put up some photos and videos. Then get your 6 students to send it to everyone they know. FB says the average number of friends people have are 130 but your students could have a lot more. If they do send it to their 130 plus your 130, that's like 900+ people who find about your school. Obviously not everyone is going to sign up to your school but it does reach out to a load of people who might be interested. And a small website might be a good idea as if people want to find out more about you they'll probably try to Google it.

Membership offers are good. Assume you're offering free trial lessons? Attending and participating in local events is also a good idea. Every year my school does stuff like enter the local half marathon and everyone wears club t-shirts and we get people asking about that. And anything you do do, write it up in the local paper for extra exposure.

For a children's programme, you've got to get noticed in the local schools. My instructor has tons of kids because its like the "in thing" at school. Instead of joining the soccer team, they join the TKD club. If you can, do demo's at the school like on open days/parent's evenings/ school fete etc. and get noticed. But one thing I would say is to "borrow" kids to do the demo with you. Like borrow them from a sister school or somewhere. No kid wants to join a club where there's only adults training there.

And you've only been open 2 months things might not be so fast to start with but the ball will eventually get rolling.

There's a couple of older threads along the same lines that you might wanna check out:

http://www.karateforums.com/methods-to-attract-new-students-vt39789.html

http://www.karateforums.com/how-do-you-advertise-vt39097.html

[ninjanurse]

It's tough to teach within a wellness center. This is because you are usually charging a fee on top of the fee that all the members already pay. It's important to take your demonstrations and marketing outside of the center. It' sometimes costs a little more, but it's worth it.

Get active with the community. Let them know that your school cares and "gives back." Just look in a local paper and get a feel for the local events and be sure to participate in them. Attend your local government meetings as well. Get known by everyone.

I agree with the "bring a member" thing too.

Most important is to be very patient. It can take a few years to get up any kind of decent membership numbers. You've been there 2 months.

Good advice here.... it is about what you bring to the community that will bring students to your program. You may also wish to look at another site for a kids program or partner with a boys/girls club, etc. it may pan out.