Marketing for a 4-5 year olds program

[Rateh]

Hello, I have been given the opportunity to run a 4-5 year olds program at my taekwondo school. Without getting into the details of the program, how would you go about marketing to directly target 4-5 year old children?

Any advice would be helpful, you don't need to be an expert, just throw an idea out, thanks so much!

[DWx]

I'm by no means an expert but what I would say is don't market it to target children per se, but target parents who have children. If you have a 5 year old (whose probably just started school), what kind of extracurricular activity would you sign them up for?

I think mainly, make it sound like it's fun for the kid and put an emphasis on the types of skills they'll develop and how they'll develop things like confidence and gross motor skills etc. Hype it up as a program that's going to support stuff they'll be developing in school like learning discipline and learning to work with others their own age. Also if you have some sort of certification to say you're ok to work with children (in the UK we have CRB checks) make sure that the parents know this as they'll feel safer leaving little Joey Bloggs with you.

As far as advertising, flyers or ads in the local paper, maybe see if you can get the local infant school to let you put up a poster or send out flyers, maybe even a demo at a school fair or assembly. Could even hand out flyers at a local supermarket in the evenings when mums and dads would be shopping.

Good luck with the programme

[sensei8]

Broadcast text marketing...

It has long surpassed email as the best way to reach any given customer base, and it's no longer to expensive to do.

Other ways to reach that age bracket is through printed flyers, free demonstrations, gift certificates, buddy day, and special events.

[Lupin1]

If you don't already have a webpage, GET ONE. When people are thinking of signing their kids up for this kind of thing nowerdays, the first thing they do is look online. Make sure they can get a very good idea of your program from your website. Write up all the awesome skills the kids will develop and the qualifications of the instructors like DWx said and also make sure you include class times and even pricing (I don't know why schools hide their pricing until the last minute-- I want to know what it'll cost me BEFORE I go in and someone tries to pressure me into joining without telling me the cost). Also-- post lots of pictures-- pictures of your actual school, not stock pictures. Show the space, the equipment (get colorful equipment for little kids if you can), talk about the safety measures like the mats, etc. If you have a waiver from parents that let you post pictures of actual classes online, do that, too. In this day and age people are more likely to go to the place they have more information about. It's all about information. Make as much of it available as you can and then do all the flyers and everything on top of that.

[Dobbersky]

I don't teach kids younger than 7 although I accepted 6 years if they have an older sibling. I just think it symbolises a belt factory. In my Tang Soo Do years they had a tiger tots program and it was frustrating as they never remembered inasmuch as they were taught.

What you gotta think is are you going to have 10 year old black belts. Is it a glorified gymnastics program or similar to the older students syllabus.

[DWx]

I don't teach kids younger than 7 although I accepted 6 years if they have an older sibling. I just think it symbolises a belt factory. In my Tang Soo Do years they had a tiger tots program and it was frustrating as they never remembered inasmuch as they were taught.

What you gotta think is are you going to have 10 year old black belts. Is it a glorified gymnastics program or similar to the older students syllabus.

I don't think this has to be the case and definitely not always a symbol of a belt factory. You're not teaching them martial arts itself. If anything it's teaching the life lessons of martial arts with a bit of motor skills thrown in. We have a Little Warriors programme at my school and the kids go through that then when they're old enough they start the proper programme from white belt. It often gives them a leg up on other students because they already know the procedure and what's expected of them and have better control over their techniques than total beginners. Maybe you could call it a glorified gymnastics programme but it is a great way of attracting students who can then feed into your main class. And you can think of it as 1-2 hours of your week doing something which can generate money for you to use for proper students: buying equipment or help subsidise their training fees.

[bushido_man96]

I don't teach kids younger than 7 although I accepted 6 years if they have an older sibling. I just think it symbolises a belt factory. In my Tang Soo Do years they had a tiger tots program and it was frustrating as they never remembered inasmuch as they were taught.

What you gotta think is are you going to have 10 year old black belts. Is it a glorified gymnastics program or similar to the older students syllabus.

I don't think this has to be the case and definitely not always a symbol of a belt factory. You're not teaching them martial arts itself. If anything it's teaching the life lessons of martial arts with a bit of motor skills thrown in. We have a Little Warriors programme at my school and the kids go through that then when they're old enough they start the proper programme from white belt. It often gives them a leg up on other students because they already know the procedure and what's expected of them and have better control over their techniques than total beginners. Maybe you could call it a glorified gymnastics programme but it is a great way of attracting students who can then feed into your main class. And you can think of it as 1-2 hours of your week doing something which can generate money for you to use for proper students: buying equipment or help subsidise their training fees.

I'm still trying to figure out why its bad for a 10 year old to earn a black belt. If he starts at 5, then that's 5 years in a program. Why do we all have to be old to be masters?

That said, I don't think just because there is a kids program = belt factory. Our Little Lions program runs a completely different belt system than our regular program, and is designed to prepare kids for regular classes when they get older.

At our school, if it wasn't for the kids program, we probably wouldn't be generating enough income to keep the adult program alive. Now that our school is coupled with a gym, we have the gym memberships to help keep us afloat, too. So that's another way to think of things; parents are always looking for activities for their kids, and many activities only run seasonally. MA programs run year round. And just because you start a kids program doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your standards to the adult programs.

As for the answer to the question, I think definitely marketing to the parents is the way to go. One idea would be to see if you can link up with the local recreation department, maybe run your program through that rec department, and try to get things going from there. Lots of parents flip through those magazines to look for their children's activities; I know I did it for my son when looking to start activities. That's one way to go.

[Dobbersky]

I have no issues with kid blackbelts as long as they are junior grades. Those of us who have been training and teaching for more years than we care to remember cannot disagree that a child's perception of martial arts is completely different to am adult's perception of exactly the same techniques. THIS is why there's a difference and why kids SHOULDN'T be awarded full grades

[bushido_man96]

How many years have you taught, just out of curiosity. I've been doing it a while, too.

I don't think a kid's perception of the techniques and an adult's is necessarily different, or should be taught differently. Adults need to learn self-defense just as much as kids do. After all, more kids get bullied than adults do. If you can teach kids to successfully stave off bullying, then why can't they be a black belt?

[Rateh]

Thanks for the responses so far.

As far as running it in a rec center, that is not an option. I am running it as part of a full time school, I will just be in charge of the 4-5 program.

We do have a website and a facebook page, putting up pictures or video of parts of classes would be great, once we get the program going.

As far as the whole babysitter/belt factory idea, I'm not concerned. While this program is new to this school, I have 12 years of experience teaching young children. No their program will not be nearly as complicated as the older programs. No they wont be doing contact sparring, knife defense, or anything of that nature. But they will be learning martial arts, the basic fundamentals that they will build on as they get older.

Additionally, they will be earning white belts with colored stripes through the middle. I personally believe that it should be just as difficult for an adult to move from white belt to yellow belt, as for a 4-5 year old to move from white belt to white belt with a yellow stripe. Sure its a whole lot less to know and remember, but why in the world would I expect a 4-5 year old to be the same as an adult. And why in the world would I hold them back at the same rank for 2 years just because they AREN'T an adult.

They are children, they learn as children, they remember as children, they have the coordination of children...but that doesn't mean that the CAN'T do martial arts, it just has to be techniques and requirements that are appropriate for...children!

Now, back toward my original question. I'm thinking of using pre-schools to market. Now the question is, how will I get their parents on board? If you had a 4-5 year old in a pre-school, what would influence you to have them join a 4-5 year old martial arts program? Obviously I need to help them to see the value of what I am teaching, the question is, how do I go about that?

I'm thinking flyers by themselves will not be very effective, I know at daycares and pre-schools the parents are given hand-outs and flyers all the time, and most of them don't read them...

Thanks again for the suggestions, I look forward to reading more.