3 Easy Ways to Grow Your Martial Arts School in 2022

Lenard Cassimatis
4 minutes
4/4/2022

Looking to grow your gym, dojo or martial arts school? 

Trying to adapt to the changing landscape of business in 2022?  

Martial arts schools in particular have been innovative and adaptable in the past couple of years, finding inventive ways to keep their doors open and operations running.  As the dust settles from the last two years, it’s time to get back on track and position you and your business for strong growth in 2022 and beyond.  

Luckily, we’ve got you covered with some handy tips for new and established Martial Arts schools. 

Work with local schools

Getting through school can be a tough and awkward time for some kids.  But Martial Arts continues to prove to be a way that children can gain confidence, build discipline and stay fit, whilst also having fun and making new friends.  Getting involved with the local school community is a great way to grow your school, but you should always approach the school with some value in exchange.  Offer a free anti-bullying seminar where you can espouse the great benefits of martial arts.  You can even work in an after-school program, and maybe even try and host it at the school.  Busy parents will love a service where their children are kept being productive, whilst also having fun in a safe environment.

Grow your Social Media

A very obvious one, but not a lot of Martial Arts Schools pay it enough time.  When people think of social media, they often think of influencers and socialites garnering millions of followers and likes.  Running social media can be daunting.  Worrying about what to post and doing so consistently has its own challenges.  But whether it be on Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok, carving out a niche and building a community of die-hard fans is worth it.  We have a couple tricks to make it easy:

  • You don’t have to spread yourself thin across all platforms.  Find the platform that best suits your demographic and promote your business there.     
  • Native content (things shot on iPhone or Android) are just as sought after content as higher-end production.  So don’t be afraid to whip out the phone and start shooting!
  • Leverage across your students' social networks.  If they enjoy the class, get them to post about it to their friends!  Word of mouth is powerful.
  • Have a month-to-month posting schedule, so you don’t waste time planning a post every day. Block out a day to schedule your content for the following month.  Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to do so through Meta Business Planner. 
  • Post things of value - whether it be insightful or funny (and still related to the martial art), or just shouting out great students, post content that people will find interesting and involving.  
  • Cross promote with local businesses in the area.  If there’s a local nutrition warehouse, consider running a collaborative promotion on social media. 

If you want to learn more about growing your social media presence, have a look at our previous post on 3 Great Ways To Build An Online Presence For Your Martial Arts School In 2022.

Get aqtiv!

Last but certainly not least.  We’ve built a sports booking platform that automates student bookings, payments and checking-in, so you can spend less time taking payment and more time on the mats! 

To stay on course with the changing business landscape, we’re putting a lot of emphasis on subscriptions as a payment option for members. It’s super convenient for members and a great way for martial arts schools to achieve stronger retention.  You select the time period for when payment is automatically debited, be it weekly, fortnightly, monthly, per term or semester - it’s up to you!  You can even start new members on a discounted or free trial that automatically begins debiting at the end of the trial period.

Subscription based revenue models allow venues to achieve greater cash flow, allowing for better financial planning, unlocking serious growth potential.  In fact, it’s projected that subscription model businesses are set to grow by up to 50% annually.  

And the best part about all of this?  You can get started with it all by making a free account with aqtiv.

Wanna learn more?  Click here to find out.

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