How to market your martial art school, what works now and what stops working over time.

One thing I can say 100% about marketing. It's cyclical. It works like this actually.

1. Innovators take things from outside of the norm, area, genre or sector of business and apply it in a unique way that that specific market has not seen.

2. It works great! Boom.

3. Other marketers get wind of it and copy.

4. The average business owner winds up usually learning of these tactics and strategies after the 2nd string of marketers have already implemented and used it. What this does is 2 fold. 1) The marketer has real results and he / she can use those results to get more customers. 2) The business owner is coming in on the low end of the pyramid - which is not good. Cracks in the foundation of the process are already springing leaks.

5. That process becomes heavily overused. The people at the bottom of the triangle are slightly frustrate it's too costly, time-consuming, or just doesn't have the effect or the results the guys/gals in 1-3 had.

6. The masses hear about the "gold rush" and come for the fast money.

7. Essentially smashing the process to bits that once worked great. Consumers are wind of it, tired of it and annoyed by it.

8. The said process stops working. Marketers bail ship in search of another mound of cheese.

9. The process starts over, either in the direction of something NEW, or something OLD is redone. Which is happening now again with print. We had one of our best months in a few years because people are realizing that some things are classics and don't go out of style. There will always be new tech and new tactics, but the basics are the basics and the basics win fights.

Gary V said (Paraphrased) - Marketers are like mice, they find a piece of cheese and it's lovely, then other mice get wind of it and everyone runs to get a piece and once that cheese is devoured (overused, and beat to death) they leave to search for another piece of cheese.

A good rule of thumb is this.

1) Pick one long ball game of marketing (blogging, SEO, Video content, books, movies whatever) This is going to take you a lot of time.

2) Pick 2 short ball games of marketing (paid FB ads, paid google ad words - paid billboards, paid digital signage programs,)

3) Pick 2 online and 2 offline ways of marketing (Blogs, FB ads, Print Materials, Events)

The tendency to do too much and too many things always harm you.

You can only do so much in a day. This formula works

9 years ago Dojo Muscle started as an Idea given to me by my old jitz coach (Christopher Brough). I've been building marketing for martial art schools for a long time.

We've been doing marketing for multiple sectors of business for close to 16 years now. I can say that normally from trends new is old and old is new and this has happened for decades in marketing.

So if you want to really crush the future, look to what works now, but also what worked in the past that will probably come back in style soon.

The key to it all is simple, adjust and readjust what you are doing, use what works for you, discard the rest, and keep growing and learning. Things change all of the time. One of the most important skills you can cultivate (delegate a lot of things) is learning how to market your business. It is the lifeblood of your business.